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HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 









Sli; l UEI) IT- \sn AGED 74, ON “SKINNV, WITH DAUGII'E f f \NI . 'f,l ij C (»V 
IIEK “lIDDL\'AVINkS, ’ NO\ EMBER 1931 
f flj' courtesy of tu* * \ ot t/’n v hcho ' ) 




HALF A CENTURY OF 

SPORT 

* 

BY 

SIR ALFRED PEASE, BART. 

IFITH i6 ILLUSTRATIONS 


LONDON 

JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LTD. 



l- 


First published m IQS^ 


MADS AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN 
BY THE BOWERING PRESS, PLYMOUTH 


V- 




This book is published by- 
arrangement -with ‘ The Field ’ 





TO 

« THE SQUIRE " 

WILLIAM HENRY ANTHONY WHARTON, M.F.H. 
in memory of our life-long friendship 


t- 




PREFACE 


T he basis of this volume is forty-two articles 
written for The Field in 1931, under the title of 
“Seventy Years of Sport.” So many readers of these 
contributions expressed a wish to possess them in a 
collected form that it encouraged a belief that many 
others at home and abroad might be interested in 
them if presented in this more compact and accessible 
way. 

In dealing with so lengthy a period as that covered 
in these pages (1857 to 1909) it was not easy to know 
what to select from my voluminous diaries nor how to 
keep within those limits of space which are , necessarily 
imposed when writing for the Press. To have at- 
tempted embellishments and a certain kind of sensa- 
tional literary style, which some of my acquaintances, 
have told me is the way to attract the modern reading-’ 
public, would have been contrary to my nature and 
would have defeated the purpose of giving an un- 
adorned account of a variety of experiences. The 
welcome given to these articles convinced me that 
their very simplicity and diversity made an appeal to 
every description of sportsman and lover of nature. 

If an apologia is necessary for this book it can be 
found in the fact that it is not easy to obtain a similar 
collection of experiences. There were in my time of 



X 


PREFACE 


course many men whose sporting adventures would 
hav€i-been better worth the telling, yet only a percentage 
of these .have lived to my age. Fewer still have kept 
9 . '.systematic record of their doings, and of these 
reduced numbers very few are ready to undertake the 
.labour of selecting subjects and of siting their 
reminiscences: The great transitional period in which 
5 have lived lends itself to the treatment I have given 
it-.'- It is one which witnessed the great unknown spaces 
'df ,die world made accessible and enormous improve- 
[ments in the means of transport. It has been an age of 
’^eat,.:diahge in the conditions under which all forms 
of s^^-'can be conducted. 

- Rbljcrt' Louis Stevenson says somewhere that by 
the .'iam^ -.a man “gets well into the seventies, his 
■continued' existence is a mere miracle,” and his life so 
precarious that he is in a situation “ compared to which 
the .Valley of Balaclava was as safe and peaceful as a 
■village, cricket gireen on Sunday.” So what I give 
here', has ’liad to be quickly written. The old who 
iobk'back on the way they came will generally agree 
with the finding : 

“ Does the road wind uphill all the way ? 

Yes to the very end.” 

Yet I have passed through many pleasant places on 
way. I could not count the happy memories I owe 
to field sports and their environment, nor the friends 
they have brought me. Without them amid toil and 
trouble I should at times have lost the zest to live and 
.the health to work. I should have lived without my 
Best comrades and never have enjoyed that peculiar 
•intimacy with animate and inanimate creation only 



PREFACE 


XI 


attainable by the hunter in the field, the mountain and 
the wilderness. 

Here is a quaint old passage from a book in praise 
of hunting of 1686, where the author warns us “ to 
hold a strict rein over our affections, that this pleasure,. - 
which is allowable in its season may not intrench 
upon ” our more serious affairs and proceeds thus;:- 
“ There is a great danger lest we be transported .wit£ 
this Pastime, and so ourselves grow Wild, -hauritin'g'' 
the Woods till we resemble the Beasts which are. the 
Citizens of them ; and by continual conversation' with 
Dogs, become altogether addicted to Slaugis^ atfd' 
Carnage, which is wholly dishonourable. . ^ as 

it is the privilege of Man who is endued vrith- K-eason, 
and Authorized in the Law of Creation to subdue the 
Beasts of the Field : so to tyrannize over them too. 
much is brutish in plain English.” 

Properly played I have observed the ..game tqhbe 
educating and humanizing, cultivating- the better side' 
of man’s nature and stimulating sympathy with-.an’d. 
affection for beast and bird. It even doqs someth’ii^i 
of the same sort for the creatures which are o.ur ser- 
vants, hence “ the horse’s sympathy with man’s freh^y" 
in hunting ” ; even the dogs share our hearths “ agid;-.- 
adore the footsteps of our children.” ' ' 

Whereas the man who can talk of nothing but fils '■ 
favourite sport is a bore and usually a poor authority- 
on the subject, there are no broader and wiser vie'v^s, 
no larger sympathies, no kinder and no braver hearts • 
than those to be found amongst sportsmen. And so 
it should be, for they are reared in a school w;luch^ 
appeals for the exertion of man’s moral as much as of. 
his physical qualities. 



PREFACE 


xii 

Thus I send forth these fragments of the past in 
the hope that they may interest the reader and that 
however artless the record may be it will remain one 
with at least some sporting historical value, of the 
time in which I lived, and keep in honoured remem- 
brance the names of not a few good men and true. 

ALFRED E. PEASE. 


PlNCHlNTHOftPE. 

November 21 , 1931 . 



CONTENTS 


CHAP PAGB 

I. BOYHOOD .... I 

Hunting in ** the Sixties ” — ^In the days of muzzle 
loaders — Grouse driving in the €arly “ Seventies ” — 

My brother’s extraordinarj" “ right and left ” — ^The 
wire cartridge — Old and modern retriever breeds — 

Clumbers — Our “ bobbery pack ” — Beagles — ^The 
Cambridge University Drag — My doctor’s and an 
Indian shikari’s inglorious deaths — A great run with 
the Woodland Pytchley, November 22, 1878. 

II. CAMBRIDGE DAYS . . .12 

Lord Spencer’s one-eyed “ Merlin ” — ^The Cam- 
bridge Drag — Hoole breaks his neck in the race for 
“ The Whip,” 1 876 — Lord Binning’s “ Mosquito ” 
and his feats — Punishing courses in the Over Drag — 

Virtues of Spirits of Peppermint and other strong 
drinks — ^How Lord Carmarthen went to ground — 

George Carter and the Fitzwilliam Hounds— The 
Polo Club — Reflections on hunting in old and present 
times — Cases of remarkable “ homing instinct ” in 
hounds and dogs. 

III. MEMORIES AND ANECDOTES . .21 

A fast six-mile drag in 1878 — ^A run with the Duke 
of Beaufort’s — Dr. Grace the sole survivor — Fatali- - 
ties to horses and men in the field — Long rides to 
covert — ^A tame fox, a tame jackal, a tame wild boar 
and tame badgers — How I took my squirrel to the 
dentist — My Eagle Owl and the officer of Customs — 

The trick played on me by a bush cat — Deer stalking 
and stalkers’ tyranny — My first stag — ^A sanguinary 
business — ^A bloodless stalking feat on the Sabbath. 

IV. THE EARLY EIGHTIES . . 3I 

A queer mount — ^The cost of hunting the Cleveland 
country, 1879—1880 — ^The improvement in hunters 
since 1880 — ^The peculiarities of “ Faraway ” — ^The 
greatest run I ever saw — ^Hounds die of exhaustion 
— ^A bad fall — Hunters tried over fences at Shows. 



CONTENTS 


xiy 

CBA?.' 

Y. NOTES FROM MY DIARIES, 188 O -81 . 

A record of the Roxby Hounds in the eighteenth 
century — ^The pig-killing day — ^The girl who tied 
our run fox to her apron-string — A severe winter — A 
cold day with the Bilsdale — Bobby Dawson : his life, 
death and burial — ^Nearly drowned with the Beaufort 
— Sir Robert N. Fowler, a very tough customer — He 
makes good use of the Lord Mayor’s gilt gingerbread 
coach. 

VI. NOTES FROM MY DIARIES, 1 88 1-82 . 

Murderous battles with poachers — How my brother 
killed his first stag and was blooded — ^A day’s grouse 
driving with champagne — ^James Cookson, M.F.H., 
and the Hurworth — ^A successful breeder of race- 
horses, a fiddler and preacher — How “ Jerry ” the 
terrier was lost and found — ^Two Lord Hehnsleys— 
Good scent on hot, dry days in March. 

vn-. VARIOUS RECORDS OF 1 882 . 

A Chamber of Agriculture debate summarized — A 
good last day of the season — ^A tour after badgers in 
Herefordshire and Gloucestershire— About terriers— 
Nearly buried alive — Two extinct terrier breeds — ^A 
good grouse year — Our Northumbrian keeper — 
^ueen Victoria and our ghillie ** John the Wobster,” 

Vlir. ^SCOTLAND AND SPORT, 1 882— 83 

A useful ten days in October — ^A red-letter day with 
the Cleveland — ^A run of 1776 with (?) the Beaufort 
— ^A gallant hind in 1733 — ^A story about Ralph 
Lambton — Some hard riders with the Zetland — ^A 
Cleveland bob-tailed fox — A singular day with the 
Bilsdale — Hunting in May on the moors — Stable 
habits of the period — Off to Radnorshire for badgers. 

XX,' WALES AND ELSEWHERE IN 1 883 

Sport with the Green-Prices in Radnorshire — ^A good 
day on -the bus-horse with Colonel Price’s hounds — 
Tragic death of Frank Green- Price — Welsh rough- 
coated^ hounds — My Welsh hound Malster ” not 
appreciated in Cleveland — Horse-dealers profits well 
earned — ^The vernacular applied to pointers — ^A good 
grouse season and a shooting accident — Shooting 
accidents to eyes — A clever vixen’s escape — A match 
on Croft Racecourse — ^A ringing hare — “ Malster ” 
and Johnny Fetch’s big ham — He is banished to 
Bilsdale. 


PAGE 

37 


43 


49 


56 


63 



CONTENTS 


XV 


CHAP. PAGE. 

X. PEOPLE AND PLACES, 1884 . • 7 ^ 

As bad as a nightmare — Murder of Lord Zetland’s 
game-keeper — Something about Tom Parrington — 
buy “ a good hunter ” at Tattersalls and the result — 

Grief in a good run with the Bedale — ^The Bishop 
and the pitman — Hon. Arthur Lawley (now, 1931, 

Lord Wenlock) — Sir John Willoughby — ^The Lord 
Mayor’s banquet to the Beaufort Hunt — Death of 
Admiral Chaloner — Some stories about him. 

XI. MORE ABOUT 1 8 84. 4 . 77 

An accident to fox and hounds with the South 
Durham — Good Samaritans in a moor run — Cases of , 
blackmail — ^The old elm at Holt — Walter Long — 

Lord Worcester as a huntsman — Lord Portsmouth’s 
hounds and country. 

XII.‘ GOOD DAYS AND GOOD RIDERS, 1 885 83 

The “last day” in 1884 — ^About “Baggies”-^' 

Sample of a long day — ^A hard day in January — , 

Hounds to remember — Good men killed at Abu Klea 
— Major Atherton — “ Comus ” teaches me a lesson 
— ^A neat impromptu — ^The fox under the bed — ^A* 
remarkable run with the Cleveland — ^The Master- 
ship of the Hurworth — ^Wharton — Forbes — “ Every- 
body worth tuppence ” out. 

*? 

XIII. SPORT ON LAND AND SEA IN ^^^85 

AND 1886 . . ‘ 

The Hurworth Hounds — ^A hard day with the Cleve- ‘ ' ‘ 

land — ^Beagles and a bagged Fox — Hunting a “ two 
year old ” — Days with Lord Portsmouth — -How he 
made a famous pack — ^An improvised drag — ^Bass 
fishing on the Cornish coast — ^Terrors of the outer 
Manacles Rock — ^A horse tamer’s methods — M.P. 
or M.F.H. — ^Wharton takes the Cleveland. 

XIV. SURREY IN 1 8 86, SCOTLAND AND 

CLEVELAND . . , . 98 

I combine hunting and politics — Hunting with the 
Burstow Hounds — ^A day with the Surrey Stag — 

How it ended on Mount Ephraim — ^A day with the. 

Old Surrey — Rohallion and its herd of bison — ^The*- 
dramatic story of Sir William Stuart of Murthly — 

The last day with Will Nichol as Huntsman to the 
Cleveland — ^The Cleveland Bay Horse Society formed. 



.XVI 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


CHAP. 

XV. ABOUT SPORTSMEN, SPORT AND A 

SAW-SHARPENER (l886) . , IO5 

The Lowthers of Swillington and Wilton — ^The con- 
tents of a grouse’s crop — ^A curious “ find ” — Hunts- 
men and their whips — Forbes and his servants — 

When I gave Forbes a shower-bath of mud — Strange 
conversation with a tramp — A rare fifty minutes-— 

An extraordinary hunt and holding scent. 

xvr. ODDS AND ENDS FROM MY DIARY, 

1887-88 . . ,112 

A hybrid wolf and terrier — Hunting from Town — 

Lord Doneraile’s death from hydrophobia — Blooding 
A. E. Leatham in Scotland — Deeside and Perthshire 
in October — ^The biggest fox “ whatever was seen ” 

— ^With James Tomkinson hunting in Cheshire — His 
hard riding — Killed in the last House of Commons 
Steeplechase, 1910 — ^An incident at a badger dig. 

XVII. A- COLLECTION OF RECORDS, I 88 8-8 9 II9 

A good hunter from a roadster mare — My stallion 
“ Syrian’s ” performances — ^The red and black Kerry 
cows at Kilmorna — ^About Kerries and Dexters — 

Young Clive Dixon begins to make a mark — Bobby 
Dawson and “Arundel” of T/te Field — Hunting a 
fox after midnight — ^The invasion of Eastern England 
by Pallas’s sand grouse — Lionel Palmer enjoys him- 
self — ^An impudent fox gets a dusting. 

XVIir.*'** REMINISCENCES AND REFLECTIONS (1889) 126 

How “ Report ”, “ not worth sixpence,” won the 
Italian “ Grand National ” — How my brother and I 
stopped the Hurworth Hounds in the dark — Smash- 
ing the railway gates — The evil of overfed and under- 
worked hunters — A hard day and a fast drive — ^The 
old Squire at eighty in at the death — Beagles and a 
fox — The Bilsdale have a day in the Cleveland coun- 
try — How Bobby Dawson bred hounds from the 
Duke of Buckingham’s blood in secret. 

XIX. OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF SPORT AND 

SPORTSMEN, 1889-90 . .134 

Tom Wilkinson of Hunvorth — Otter hunting — 

Watching badgers on summer evenings — Memories 
of Mentmore and Foxhall — A very dangerous gun — 

Within an inch of death — A nice mixed bag in Perth- 
shire — ^Jumping the River Wiske — ^Forage prices in 
1890 — ^A terrier sticks to his job for fifty- two hours 
— Mortimer skins his horse during a great run — A 
very aged vixen — Keepers dealings with vixens. 



CHAP. 

XX. 


XXI. 


XXII. 


XXIII. 


XXIV. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

ABOUT STEEPLECHASES, WILD BIRDS 

AND OTHER MATTERS . • ^39 

Elliot Lees beats me in the second House of Commons 
Steeplechase at Rugby — “ Bay ” Middleton’s harsh 
commentary on my riding — What about even weights 
in the Grand National ? — The Berlin International 
Horse Show — W. Burdett-Coutts, M.P, — Clive 
Dixon shows at the front — ^A desperate ride on the 
Moors — My Parliamentary efforts to protect wild 
birds — ^Asquith’s assistance — Bobby Dawson lame in 
his back. 

DING-DONG POINT-TO-POINT RACES 

IN 1891 . . . . 145 

My terrier “ Twig ” in an awkward situation-r-My 
best run of the season — ^The first Zetland Point-to- 
Point — Seven Peases in one race — ^The Daventry 
House of Commons Steeplechase, Staverton to Fleck- 
noe and back — ^I win it on Nora Creina — stay at 
Althorp — am knocked off my horse by a stone flung 
by a horse — ^The first Cleveland Point-to-Point — A 
punishing distance — The Cat,” John Maunsell 
Richardson. 

AFTER IBEX AND IZARD IN THE 

PYRENEES, 1891 . . ..... TJ 5 

We take a Scotch gamekeeper to the PyreneesL-His 
adventures — ^The Invercauld factor on religioul 
opinions — Lundie’s fall from grace — ^The Val d^ Arras 
— ^The terrors of the long corniche — La Scala Buxton 
— Hair-raising situations 

AFTER MARAL IN ASIA MINOR, 1 89 1 . l6<i 
A good last grouse season on our Scotch moor — 

Edward North Buxton — ^The man who braved 
governors and consuls and made use of them — We 
employ a noted brigand — ^The story of his life — Ex- 
periences in the Ak Dagh — ^Attacked by eagles — 

Buxton’s misfortunes and fortitude. 

EXTRAORDINARY CROPPERS AND 

NOTES IN 1891—92 . . 170 

Two curious falls — ^The man who looked into his 
horse’s mouth with his feet in the stirrups — ^The 
most terrific cropper I ever saw — ^The fox which 
went to sea and saved his brush — ^The Ward-Jackson 
brothers — At Aston Clinton — Leopold Rothschild’s 
bloodstock — Lord Rothschild’s emus. 



CONTENTS 


CHAP. 

XXV. 


''XXVI.; 


• XjfVII. 


xxvni^ 


XXIX. 


PAGE 

SPORT IN ALGERIA, 1892-95' . 174 

The big game of North Africa — ^The great panthers 
of the Atlas — Shooting bustards and gazelles from 
the saddle — I am shot by a tyro big-game hunter — 

The lion which rode a donkey, 

; OF THE BARBARY WILD SHEEP AND 

DORCAS GAZELLE , . -179 

Of the Barbary wild sheep and Dorcas gazelle — ^The 
fascination and difficulty of this chace — ^The cunning 
of an old ram — ^The highest test of hunting craft — 

A springtime paradise — ^The Tuaregs and their 
camels — ^A camel race — ^The art of a rabatteur of 
gazelles. 

ADVENTURES IN MOUNTAIN AND 

DESERT, 1892-95 . .186 

A magnificent fluke — ^The ram of death — Discovery 
of a new gazelle — Sir Edmund Loder’s distinction — 

A sandstorm — ^The Admi antelope — ^A tantalising 
experience — ^Two narrow escapes — ^The sad ends of 
my two shikaris. 

MORE ABOUT ALGERIA AND TUNISIA 

IN 1894. . . .193 

Mount Chelia — ^A vain quest for lions — Buying 
‘horses and mules at Batna — My favourite rifle — 

Two opportune shots — ^How ** Prince ” Fana shot 
the ox — ^The Kald of Khanga Sidi Nadji and a drive 
for wild sheep — ^The great explorer, Fernand Foureau 
“Loder and I set out after addax — ^We are kept 
prisoners at El Oued — Our journey to the Tunisian 
Shotts and mountains — Where the addax may be 
found, 

TRAVELS IN THE SAHARA SPORT IN 

STYRIA (1895 TO 1899) . . 200 

Oued Chair to Guerara — The Erg — I capture a sand 
fish — My Algerian pets — ^The Rime gazelle — ^About 
rifles — ^Weapons for dangerous game — ^Amazing 
modem facilities for travel — My preference for the 
old-time ^ journeys— Sport in Austria— Stalking 
chamois in Styria — Schwarzen See — Chamois drives 
’•—Abnormal chamois— Fine heads and top weights. 



CHAP. 

XXX. 


XXXI. 


XXXII. 


XXXIII. 


XXXIV. 


CONTENTS Xix 

PAGE 

IN ENGLAND AND ELSEWHERE, 1894— 

95 . . • . 209 

At the Durdans — Ladas’s Derby — Loder*s wild 
animals at Leonardslee — ^The white hart of Glen 
Dole — Badgers for Epping Forest — Hunting — After 
izards on Mount Canigow — ^At the Durdans for Sir 
Visto’s Derby — S. Loates performs a feat — ^A snow-: 
white foal — Some curious freaks — “ Kit Cradock'” 

— My brother’s sporting challenges — ^A very queer 
game of golf — Staghunting at Fontainebleau. 

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND SOMALI-^' 

LAND, 1896-97 . . 

The novelties of 1 896 — Cinemas and motor carriages . v 

— My little boy wins his spurs — Wilfrid Blunt’s 
Arabs — Ford Barclay in Somaliland — Brave Somali 
boys — How Lord Delamere’s life was saved — ^The' 
travels of a Somali sheep. 

VARIOUS RECORDS AND A TALK WITH 

SCOTT, 1897-98. . ■ ■■. 

Winter sports at St. Moritz — ^Accidents there — De- 
testable Swiss game laws — ^A talk on Arctic explora- 
tion with Scott — Killing driven grouse with a .4.10 — ■’ 

A dangerous Princess — Somaliland’s game yield in 
1895 — Victorian ladies in the hunting field. , 

ABOUT BARBS, ARABIANS, POLO AND^ 

OTHER SUBJECTS, 1 898-99 15 ^'^ 9 

I start the year badly — My brother rides the winner*^ 
in the House of Commons Steeplechase — A hbt^ 

October day — My five Barb mares : their sad fate — 

Modern neglect of the Barb — Remarks on polo — ^At 
Nauheim with a ** shattered heart ” — ^A queer sensa- 
tion — Death of John Proud. 

SOME RECORDS OF 1899— I9OO WITH 
REFLECTIONS ON DIABOLICAL EN- 
GINES AND POISON . . 25 ( 

Charles Rothschild and fleas — Flea-hunting on 
bouncing badgers — ^A clinking run — Deaths of Tom 
Wilkinson and of Martin Morrison — My first ex-' 
perience of a barbed-wire country — ^The death of the ' 

Old Squire — On man-traps, spring-guns and strych- 
nine — Horrible consequences — Nauheim again — 

Two Orr Ewings. 



CONTENTS 




XXXV. THE TRIALS OF OLD PEACHEY 

ABYSSINIA AND NOTES, I9OO-OI . 
A. E. Leatliam*s trophies — My conversation with the 
taxidermist — My travels in Abyssinia and the Galla 
countries — How I missed obtaining the first Moun- 
" tain Nyala — Centenarians — High pheasants. 

xxxvr>- INDIA IN 1901 PYTHONS, BABOONS 

AND HORNBILLS . 

Modern “ Jack Myttons ” — Unsatisfactory insur- 
ance against accidents-— In India — ^The smaller 
python which ate the larger one — How to catch 
baboons and pythons — The Tenderfoot ” scores — 
Extraordinary intelligence of hornbills — ^A tame 
lynx — ^The Indian bison — ^The woman who smoth- 
ered a bear — I entertain the Maharaja of Kolhapur 
in England — ^Finding six match blue roans for his 
team. 

xsbcvn. LIFE IN SOUTH AFRICA, I9O3-O5 

' First impressions of South Africa — My final destina- 
tion a naturalist’s paradise — Eden complete with the 
serpent — ^Tiger fishmg — ^A fever temperature of 
1 1 3® F. — ^Taming wild dogs for hunting — My last 
hurdle race — What an old “ Vortrekker ” told me — 
Why many species of game die out — Major James 
Stevenson Hamilton, the greatest of lion hunters — 
His great work in the game reserves. 

XXXVIII.' ENGLAND, THE ORKNEYS, HUNGARY 

AND THE SUDAN, I905-06 
In the Orkneys — ^Its attractions — Rock pigeons — 
Residence on the Island of Capri — ^Eastern Hungary 
— ^In the Sudan — Up the White Nile tributaries — 
Mrs. Gray’s water buck — Giant tuskers — ^Nuer 
giants — ^A terrifying experience with ants. 

lOCXIX. ITALY, SCOTLAND AND KENIA, I907— O9 
Return to Capri — ^The great eruption of Vesuvius — 
Home agam — Hunting once more — ^The first dinner 
of the Shikar Club— -I purchase land in B.E.A. (Kenia) 
— ^Shooting and stalking in Scotland — ^The best run 
of the 1908—9 Season in Cleveland — ^An extra- 
ordinary run of the Roxby Hounds in the eighteenth 
century — Roosevelt’s time with me in Kenia — His 
record bag in thirteen days — ^A delightful guest— 
The end. 


PAGE 

242 


248 


256 


263 


272 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

SIR ALFRED PEASE, AGED 74, ON “ SKINNY,” WITH- 
HIS DAUGHTER, ANNE, AGED 8, ON HER 

“ TIDDLYWINKS,” NOVEMBER, 1 93 1 Frontisptece 

Facing page^ 

TOM ANDREW, MASTER OF THE CLEVE*- . 

LAND HOUNDS, 1855— 70 . ... ■ .-i, ' 

MR. ROBERT FELLOWES OF SHORTESHAM PARK,' 

NORFOLK . . . . , 4 

CAMBRIDGE A.D.C. COMMITTEE, 1 877 . . I4 

THE FIRST CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY POEO CLUB • *' - 

COMMITTEE . . . ■ . 1.8 

JOHN PROUD, MASTER OF THE CLEVELAND HOUNDS,,^ ■ ’ 

1879-86 . . . ■ 

, 

BOBBY Dawson’s funeral — he died, aged 91,- ." ’ 

IN 1902, AND was buried WITH HUNTING ' 
HONOURS .... '40 

RALPH LAMBTON ON FOOT, THREE HOUNDS AND 
THE FOX DEAD-BEAT IN THE STREET AT 
BISHOP AUCKLAND AFTER A FAMOUS RUN . 60 ‘ 

COLONEL W. H. A. WHARTON, M.F.H., MASTER OF 
THE CLEVELAND, l886— 1919, AND AT PRE- 
SENT, 1932, JOINT-MASTER WITH HIS 
DAUGHTER, MISS WHARTON . . 96 



xxii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facing page 

^A. E. REASE AND BARBARY WILD SHEEP . l8o 

AN a6mi antelope (gazella cuvieri) . 182 

A,.E. PEASE AND 'HIS BARB TIFFIN TIME IN THE 

'desert iq8 

■ ^ 

^^A Si^.^XI LION AND A GRERY’s ZEBRA, KILLED BY 

'■'’■pitRED PEASE, 1897 . . . 202 

1 . • , 

^^^•,>^A’SE, M.P. (afterwards LORD GAINFORd) 23O 

A.V'E. l^EASE .AND GUNBEARERS ^ABYSSINIAN 

SOMALILAND, 1 897 . . , 244 

_^I?RESIJ>ElfT U.S.A., COLONEL THEODORE ROOSE- 
VELT, WITH HIS SON AND HIS FIRST BUFFALO, 

1909 • • . , a 8 o 



HALF A CENTURY OF SP6RT- 




Chapter I 


BOYHOOD 

I WAS born in 1 857. Though I remember dis'tiRQtly 
my first pony, a little grey Welsh one called Donald," 
I cannot remember when I began to ride him,- but, ! 
have a vivid recollection of my first meet, which m"ust 
have been about 1863 or 1864. /■ 

Hounds met at Cockerton, then a country village 
well outside Darlington. Mr. C. Cradock, of Hart- 
forth, was in charge. 

It was about the date 1866 that he took over a part 
of the Duke of Cleveland’s country and hunted it, 
until 1876, when the late first Marquess of Zetland 
succeeded him and hunted it for thirty-five years. 
The pack is still called the Zetland. 

I did not think much of my day for I was kept 
standing about with hands, feet and ears frozen for 
an hour and brought home to my nurse, who put my 
feet into hot water and made me howl with the pain 
of being thawed. That is some sixty-seven years ago. 

The first fox I saw killed was near Upleatham Hall, 
the then Earl of Zetland’s Cleveland seat, long since 
pulled down, but whether the year was 1865 or 1866 
I am not sure. 

This was when the Cleveland Hounds were a 
trencher fed pack and during the Mastership of Mr. 
Tom Andrew the last and the most noted of the three 



HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


Andrews who successively hunted this pack from 
father to son. Tom hunted it until his death in 1870.^ 
1 87 1, Mr. J. T. Wharton, of Skelton Castle, 
‘hecame Master and brought the hounds into kennel — 
,his son Col. (“ Squire ”) W. H. A. Wharton is the 
present owner of the pack and except for a brief period 
. has-been our M.F.H. since 1886. 

■ ' I have therefore hunted regularly with these hounds 
during at least sixty-four years whenever I have been 
in England. 

Only one member of the hunt survives whose 
association with the days of Tom Andrew dates 
earlier by a yCar’ or two, namely, Mr. R. Theodore 
Wilson, of Marton,^ and rheumatism keeps him out 
of the saddle but cannot stop him from following on 
foot. He is a stayer still, and was a three-mile Blue 
in his Cambridge days. 

I do not propose to confine myself to my diaries nor 
to hunting, but to record anything that may be of 
interest to those whose sympathies are with country 
life. There will be, I hope, some chronological order 
when I get to my diaries, but I shall jot down other 
recollections as they occur to me. 

I have just been reminded by some remarks in a 
paper on sport and shooting in the much-libelled 
Victorian era of some facts and memories which may 
surprise the man who ridicules the days of the muzzle 
loader. 

Some years ago I was shooting 'with the late Mr. 
Robert Fellowes, of Shotesham, then I think about 

^ la 1S87 Longmans, Green & Co. published my history The Cleveland Hounds 
as a Trencher-Ted "Pack. 

* He died June i^th, 1931. 





BOYHOOD 


3 


ninety years of age, when he asked me where I had 
been shooting in Scotland. I replied : “ At Drumoch- 
ter, with my friend Mr. George S. Albright.” 

He said, “At Drumochter! I had that shooting 
once.” He told me he used to ride up from Norfolk 
with his keeper and dogs and had several times shot 
lOO brace to his own gun in the day in “ muzzle- 
loader days ” over dogs on that moor, and on one 
occasion 130 brace. 

I told him that as far as I knew 50 brace had never been 
got by a single gun over dogs on it with breech loaders. 

In 1869 my father took a long lease of the Corn- 
davon shootings in Aberdeenshire. It was considered 
a good moor then, yielding about 700 brace in good 
seasons. The previous tenant had himself shot over 
100 brace in the day over dogs with muzzle loaders. 

Muzzle loaders had only recently “ gone out ” and 
“ pinfire ” breech loaders were general in 1869. The 
trouble with the latter was chiefly when the cartridges 
stuck. You pulled at the pin to extract a cartridge, 
often bent the pin and had to use an extractor. When 
you had much shooting you were liable to make your 
forefinger very sore, if you escaped cutting the finger. 

In twenty years “ dogging ” on this particular moor, 
though it had been much improved, yielding in good 
seasons 2000 to 3000 brace, no one shot much over 
50 brace to his own gun in the day. This was much 
short of what had been done with muzzle loaders. 

The year 1872 was a good one, and here are a few 
records from our Game Book: 


Aug. 13th . . 4 guns (2 parties), 191 brace over dogs. 
„ 14th . . „ „ 203 „ ,, 



>5 


>5 



4 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

Ten days in August over dogs yielded 1473 brace, 
with three to four guns out each day. The best day’s 
driving was September 12th — 130 brace, five guns, 
the total bag to September 17th being 2202^ brace, 
and for the season 2274 brace. 

My father had a very good kennel of pointers. He 
much preferred them to setters, the latter being more 
dependent on water, and tiring sooner in hot and dry 
weather. To the end' of his life in 1 903 he always shot 
partridges over pointers, and with better results than 
are now obtained in this part of Yorkshire by walking 
them up. The work of pointers added much to the 
pleasure of the day for anyone who is a dog lover, 
and relieved guns from the necessity of being con- 
tinually “ on the stretch.” Two guns could cover 
more ground in less time. 

We used sometimes to fly a kite in winter. Properly 
used it can be very eflFective with grouse and partridges 
when they are very wild. It gives very quick shooting, 
but cannot be recommended as a regular thing. I have 
not seen one flown for thirty years. • 

I remember once in Scotland when we had a kite up 
in addition to the small birds, which a kite usually 
attracts, a golden eagle joined in. We played with it 
a considerable time in attempts to fly the kite over the 
eagle, but he topped us every time and ran out all our 
line at a great height. 

It was not until I was about sixteen years old that I 
was allowed anything but a muzzle loader. With two 
guns and an expert loader you could do wonders with 
them; but when it came to grouse driving you were 
sorely handicapped in a good drive. 

We began regular grouse driving over butts in Sep- 




Mlv kOKERl I Cl l.fiw ns ()1 SHOKTESHAM I’AKK, N()KFOIK~\ 1'OK‘TRAl T I.V RIVIERF 
**-<■/ Pine Old EnffltsJt Gmiltmati 




BOYHOOD 


5 

tember, 1871. On my first day there were swarms of 
birds, but the shooting of all members of the party 
would now be considered decidedly bad. Of course 
they were new to the game. I was placed with a 
keeper and two muzzle loaders on the extreme end of 
each row, with an empty butt between myself and the 
next gun ! It was desperate work, and I made a poor 
job of it, but kept my loader very busy. 

This would be about the first regular driving over 
modern butts in Aberdeenshire. The party comprised 
our landlord, Colonel “ Jim ” Farquaharson of Inver- 
cauld; ^olonel Baring, who had only one eye. Captain 
FredK Johnstone, my uncle Mr. Jno. Wm. Pease, and 
my father. The bag was 63I brace of grouse, 26 hares, 
3 blackgame, 2 snipe. It should have been 1 50 brace. 

I rather think my brother, aged eleven (now Lord 
Gainford), was allowed a crack or two into the 
“ browns ” after lunch. This was September 4th, 
1871. 

A muzzle loader was a better killer, and had, I should 
say, five to ten yards better killing range than any breech 
loader. I have known a keeper wipe out a covey of 
twelve partridges with two barrels, though he fired the 
first at them on the ground and the second as they rose. 
I once as a boy shot fourteen rabbits with one barrel, 
lying on the ground and firing along a ride, but I must 
also record the most killing shots I ever saw fired in a 
grouse drive with a breech loader. 

My brother was next to me in the outside butt on 
our Hutton Lowcross Moor. I watched ten grouse 
in close formation coming up wind towards us near 
the ground. They kept thus till the moment of passing 
my brother, about eighteen to twenty-three yards on 



6 


HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


his left, and then “ fanned ” into close vertical forma- 
tion. He fired both barrels into them and they all fell. 
•'Only two were runners and they were all gathered. I 
have never seen any two shots in a grouse drive in my 
long life do anything approaching this execution. 

•' "We always used No. 5 shot in those days. I. now 
favour No. 6, and have a belief that No. 7 is the most 
.deadly,' but one hesitates to use it for it often spoils 
gapie, 

. I do' not suppose many people survive who remember 
the “ wire cartridge,” a device for killing at long range, 
say, up to seventy yards. They were not reliable and 
occasionally held the charge so close as to be equivalent 
to a bullet. One day, on the side of Roseberry Top- 
ping, a high hill, my father killed a hare at ninety-two 
yards. It had a hole through its body you could put 
two fingers through. 

The following year, 1873, grouse disease played 
havoc, and the effects were felt until 1877. 

■ In 1883, 2687 brace; in 1884, 2005 brace; in 1885, 
2917 brace; in 1886, 1249 brace; and in 1887, 2179^ 
brace were the bags after the Corndavon Moor had 
fully recovered. 

; Grouse driving, in my humble judgment, in York- 
shire and the northern English counties is nothing like 
so sporting as in Scotland, though you may get far 
bigger bags in England. My fancy is for the month 
of October in Scotland when birds are at their best, 
and you have every kind of shot. No two drives are 
.’similar, and the ground is much more varied in its 
features, giving you stands where the birds are very 
high or where they come right below you, or come 
at short or long notice. They may dive down on you 



BOYHOOD 


7 

or curl round a hill at you. In fine Octobers I have 
known grouse which were packed in September spread 
well over the moors again. 

In my boyhood you seldom saw any but the black or 
brown curly retrievers. They now seem almost extinct. 
They were very hardy, strong and reliable. I have 
often seen one bring one of our large heavy Cleveland ' 
hares over one of our high six-bar gates. They may 
not be as quick as some modern retrievers, but were' ' 
steady and not slow, and would face the thickest whin 
or thorn covers. 

The successors to the curly, in the North, were the 
wavy black breed. They were wild and difficult to 
break and to make steady, but once broken there, is 
nothing now to compare with them. They had often 
wonderful marking power, wonderful noses, brought 
your game to you faster than any other sort, and were 
very tireless. 

Labradors are very nice, but most are slow, accord- 
ing to old-fashioned ideas, in their work, and often 
take time to bring you even pheasants. I have not 
seen one gallop to you over a fence with a hare, but 
no doubt there are some which can. Most of those I 
have seen trail hares, if they are allowed to retrieve 
one at all, and wear an expression as if they thought 
no end of the feat. 

My brother had a smoother-coated bitch than was 
common in the “ wavy ” retriever period — ^for longish- 
coated specimens were called “ smooth ” when they 
had no wave or curliness in their coats, to distinguish 
them from the curly breed. She was one of the Danby 
Lodge (Viscount Downe’s) breed. This was the best 
retriever I have ever seen. She took three years to 



8 


HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


become steady, and my father, who was too tender- 
hearted to discipline such a wild creature, gave her to 
my brother, with whom she became perfect. In 
addition to all the best attributes of nose, mouth, 
intelligence and perseverance she had eyes which 
marked and followed every bird shot at and would 
stand erect on her hind legs with her eye on a bird 
until it was out of sight. 

A bird that towered and fell within a mile was 
quickly hers when she got the word “ fetch it.” In a 
grouse butt she would mark and remember where the 
most distant ones fell. In these remarks I am giving 
my opinion on the general capacities of the distinctive 
breeds as a whole, and I place the wavy, or so-called 
“ smooth,” type of the middle period first. 

In my youth. Clumber spaniels in teams were fre- 
quently used for covert shooting in outside rough 
beats. My father had a team of a dozen or more, and 
when we had them out the ground could be worked 
with them up to the guns with two or three keepers, 
and beaters were not required. 

Properly trained Clumbers worked at the right pace, 
and seldom missed much ground or anything which 
was there. It was a pretty sight to see them work 
whins and bracken on a hillside or any rough covert, 
but where pheasants were numerous they were liable 
to make a mess of things, for one unruly member might 
spoil a beat. 

It was only in 1880 that I began to keep a regular 
diary, though I have some records and notes from 1868 
onwards. One boy’s experiences of hunting will not 
differ much from any other’s, but my love of hunting, 
apart from the pleasure of riding, was fostered by a love 



BOYHOOD 


9 

of dogs and from having been kept at home until twelve 
years old in order that my brother, who was younger, 
and I might go to school together. 

From nine to twelve years old I learnt more of 
natural history and sport than in any other three years 
of my life. We kept terriers, ferrets, game cocks, 
became useful performers with catapults, could set flag 
traps, and were always after something on foot or on 
our ponies. 

To the distraction of my father we could never be 
kept out of his coverts or from galloping with a yelping 
pack of terriers after his hares over the fields. We got 
very cunning at heading hares or hunting them to 
places where there was a fair prospect of their coming 
up against wire, and as even terriers can become good 
line hunters we accounted for a good many. 

Later my brother was allowed to keep a pack of 
foot-beagles, which furthered our education in hunt- 
ing. We occasionally rode after them, which I much 
preferred, for I saw more of their work that way, being 
a better sprinter than stayer. Besides, when mounted 
we sometimes put up a fox on the moor or bolted one 
out of a drain. Those were our red-letter days, but 
very bloodless ones. We did no harm to fox-hunting, 
for beagles tend to send elusive outliers home to their 
proper coverts and sharpen them up a bit, and if they 
are truly foot-beagles, as ours were, they cannot catch 
a fox worth catching once in fifty times. 

My father. Sir Joseph Pease, enjoyed a day with 
hounds, had good hunters, and was a quick and first- 
rate judge of a horse, but he was more of a shooting 
than a hunting man — luckily for us, for when he was 
not out we gave his valuable horses something to do, 

B 



lO HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

and tested them for what they were worth! We did 
,not have quite the same views as his stud groom and 
coachman on the question of what hunters were for. 

When we both were at Cambridge we usually had 
three of these horses there, for any one of them with a 
:%,‘‘screyr loose,” which made a noise, or was too hot 
.'for oiir parent, came our way; and great fun we had 
' will^j^them with foxhounds, harriers and with the 
vUniversity Drag. 

.Xhe U.D. is an excellent institution. It gives you 
.'a certain gallop over a country in good company, and 
there is no better school for a cross-country rider. 
Anyone who can get to the finish of each of the Cam- 
bridge Drag courses will always be able to live with 
•“hounds over any country or to race in any steeplechase. 
.1 suppose our stud of three would, on the average, 
give us each three drags and a day’s hunting a week. 
My brother’s favourite mount was a strong dun-bay 
gelding, Osman, bought of Timothy Cattle, of Sessay, 
for ,£250. He was our one perfectly sound horse, a 
great galloper, fast and a brilliant fencer, but the worst 
stumbler and hack I ever rode. I have seen my brother 
come down three times before he got to the meet when 
riding the horse with great attention to his failing. 

He gave me one very bad fall over a gate, the only 
mistake he ever made with me in a drag, which was 
nearly enough. The doctor who pulled me through 
was named Garland, and before he could send me in 
a bill he was killed on his way home from hunting in 
rather a humiliating way, by a pig running between 
. his horse’s legs. On inquiry as to whom and what I 
. should pay I was told he left no accounts, had no rela- 
tions, and no executors. 



BOYHOOD 


I I 


Once when I was in India my host told me of the 
death of a friend of his which struck me as even a more 
humiliating one for a shikari, for he was on an elephant 
after tiger and came to a soft spot. The sagacious 
animal halted, felt the ground with his foot, did not- 
altogether like its consistency, and just lifted his ridge 
off with his trunk, placed him gently on the soft spot, 
put his foot on him and got over safely — whichi.>is the • 
end of the story. 

I mention the champion stumbler Osman because 
he carried me to the finish of what Lord Spencer^told 
me was the best run during his Mastership of. the 
Woodland Pytehley, 1878 to 1880. 

It was fifty minutes at top pace from Finedon 
Poplars, and only Lord Spencer on his noted one-eyed ' 
Merlin, a whipper-in, Captain Beecher, Lord Yar-: 
borough, Mr. B. H. Philips of The Heath House,^ 
Tean, and myself were there when we killed in tifie 
open; but it is worth recording that the Hon. C. R; 
(Bobby) Spencer, the Red Earl’s stepbrother arid suc- 
cessor to the earldom, was the only other up before 
the fox had been eaten. To anyone who knew him as 
well as I did, it was a remarkable performance on his 
part. He, Lord Yarborough, Philips and I were 
Cambridge undergraduates, and it was something 
which pleased our host, that four “ boys ” had held 
their own with his hounds. I saw Beecher down once, 
but he caught us again. He was reputed to be a great 
rider in his day. 



Chapter II 


CAMBRIDGE DAYS 

W HEN Lord Spencer sold his horses at Tatter- 
sails I went to see the now aged one-eyed 
Merlin sold, with some faint hope that with his empty 
eye socket and years he might go cheap, but much to 
my surprise at the number of people there who knew 
a good thing when they saw it, he was knocked down 
for 700 guineas. 

What Bertie Philips got out of Lucifer, his horse, 
may be judged from one illustration. He boxed him 
away from Cambridge to hunt with the Fitzwilliam on 
Friday and with the Pytchley on the Monday after a 
Drag on Thursday and the Drag on Saturday, and 
rode him again in the Drag on the Tuesday — five days 
out of six — and was surprised that Lucifer had to rest 
for ten days after these exertions. 

When I went up to Cambridge a man called Hoole 
was Master of the Drag; he was killed a few months 
later, breaking his neck at the University Steeple 
Chases at St. Ives in 1876 in the race for “ The Whip.” 

He was followed in the Mastership for a brief period 
by Mr. Gordon Cunard, and then by Mr. Herbert 
Magniac, though Lord Binning sometimes carried the 
horn. 

I followed Magniac when he resigned, and when I 
was in want of a mount and Binning was away he lent 



CAMBRIDGE DAYS 


13 

me his two horses. One of these. Mosquito, was the 
most wonderful horse over a country for twenty 
minutes to half an hour that I have ever seen. 

He was very dicky on his forelegs and tender- 
footed, but could get over any country at Grand 
National pace. 

One of the most difficult and quite the most 
“ cramped ” of drags was the Over Drag with forty- 
eight fences and big ditches in three miles. I was once 
just behind Binning half through this drag with a high, 
strong, new five-bar post and rails on a high bank in 
front of us, and I wondered what would happen. 
Binning held on and Mosquito only broke the top bar 
(eight feet of rails and bank), and must have jumped 
close on seven feet in height. This is the highest jump 
I have ever seen in the field, and nothing has ever 
impressed me more than Binning’s attempting it. ^ • 

I got over after him, breaking the next two rails, 
and was very pleased to have accomplished that. 
Binning once took Mosquito over the two closed 
railway gates on the high road at the level crossing, in 
the Waterbeach Drag if I remember rightly. They 
were pretty high and had lamps on an iron bar slanting 
down above them. This is a feat I never saw equalled 
in any run. 

The railway gates were not closed there, unless a 
train was due. It required a clever horse, for a railway 
is not a good take off or landing ground, and even 
Mosquito must have thought it a queer demand. 
Lord Binning was the son of the eleventh Earl of 
Haddington, and died in 1917. He was Lieutenant- 
Colonel of the Royal Horse Guards, “ The Blues.” 

I had some good rides, and won two or three drags 



14 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

on Mosquito myself, and I put him down as the best 
performer I ever rode or watched. 

I have a note with regard to an Over Drag under the 
date of March 20th, 1877. Binning and Jimmie Orr 
Ewing (James Alexander, afterwards Major i6th 
Lancefs, killed in action, 1900, in the Boer War) were 
leading at the last fence; they and Algy Lawley (now 
the Rev. Lord Wenlock^) on his Ginger Tail, 
charged it. 

It was a strong dense “ bull-finch,” and all fell into 
the finishing field. Seeing all this grief from the rear 
I came over the gate and won the drag; Eddie Tennant 
(the late Lord Glenconner) was second and Alfred 
Lyttelton (the cricketer) was third. Lloyd, Harry 
Meux (the late Sir Henry), Percy Aylmer (of Wal- 
worth Castle, Darlington), Cosmo Antrobus (the 
present Sir Cosmo Antrobus of Antrobus) and Freddy 
Meuricoffre (now living at Berne), all fell or did not 
finish. 

At this last fence. Binning got a thorn right into an 
eyeball. After consultation it was a^eed not to touch 
it. He was rushed up to London, where the thorn was 
removed without permanent injury to his eyesight. 

I remember riding this punishing course a good 
many times, in the majority of which I never stood up 
till the finish, though I won it on several occasions. 

I remember seeing my brother on an almost white 
horse. Shamrock, go overhead in one of the big fen 
ditches, which were black and stinking. He reappeared 
as a scented Ethiopian and rode an ideal hearse horse 
into Cambridge that night. 

I once got in at the same place, and was so cold after 

^ He June 1931. 








CAMBRIDGE DAYS 


15 

the bath on a bitter winter evening that I made my 
way to the Over pub, where I found some labourers, 
all of whom were sitting with tumblers of hot water 
and peppermint spirit. I had never before seen this 
drink supplied on licensed premises, but I ordered 
“ the same.” 

The effect exceeded all expectations, for it was most 
warming and comforting. Mine host informed me 
that it was the habitual drink of the natives of the fens, 
and I have no doubt that its efficacy against ague and 
cold was proved by long experience. 

Many years after I sampled another and equally 
effective release from misery and chattering teeth. I 
was returning home after an almost blank day of hail 
and rainstorms in the teeth of the north wind, wet 
through, from the neighbourhood of Aislaby, near 
Whitby, and was eighteen miles from home. 

Mr. John Fetch, of Liverton, father of the present 
Mr. Thomas S. Fetch, who was like his son a very 
keen and straight man to hounds, said, “ Come with 
me, ril soon put you right.” On reaching his place 
he brought me out while I was gruelling my mare an 
enormous cup of tea. 

Whether the tea had been made with boiling rum, 
or it was better than half and half, I cannot say, but 
in a few minutes I was warm to the tips of my toes 
and rode happily home. 

Such experiences make me think there was truth in 
the remark of one of my neighbours who, being warned 
when approaching his eightieth year “ to pull in a bit,” 
said, “ Why, mair folks dee (die) for want of a drop 
than kills their-sels wi’ drink! ” 

At the same time there is food for reflection in 



1 6 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

another remark made by a seasoned old farmer to a 
friend of mine on someone expressing wonder that he 
could carry so much liquor. “ Well, you see I’m 
trained — but what a lot on ’em dies in training! ” 

In or about 1895 the late James Mellor Paulton, who 
shared rooms with me at Cambridge for a year, and 
who represented the Bishop Auckland Division of 
^.Durham in Parliament for many years, wrote an amus- 
ing article in the Badminton Magazine on the Cam- 
bridge D’-ag in our time, some of the materials for 
which I supplied him with. It is illustrated by Stanley 
Berkeley. 

The incidents are drawn partly from imagination, 
but the prose is veracious. Paulton in one amusing 
page deals with a Master (who followed my brother 
as Master, to whom I handed the horn when I went 
down), suppressing names. There is no harm now in 
saying it was the late Duke of Leeds, whom we knew 
at Cambridge' as “ Dolly Carmarthen.” Our kennel- 
man and drag layer was a curious old customer called 
Leete, and rode a curious old horse, Ivanhoe, presented 
by Captain Machell to the Drag. Undergraduates are 
generally in want of ready cash and behindhand with 
subscriptions, and it was not always easy to find what 
Leete required for the nutrition of himself, Ivanhoe 
and the hounds, let alone rent and rates. 

Carmarthen, one afternoon at 26 Jesus Lane, hear- 
i^ig Leete s fairy footsteps and heavy breathing on the 
stairs and knowing what he was after, “ went to 
ground under the sofa. Leete, getting no response 
to his blows on the door, entered and sat down on a 
chair, and from traces of recent occupation judged the 
Master to be in covert. He had experience of genera- 



CAMBRIDGE DAYS 


17 

tions of undergraduates, so there he sat for two solid 
hours, at the end of which Carmarthen crawled out, 
Leete, betraying not the slightest evidence of having 
noticed anything unusual in his lordship’s habits nor 
dilatory in his reception, rose, saluted and opened to 
him the object of his visit. 

I could write much more about the Drag, and follow 
the careers of those who learnt to ride in that merry 
school. When I could get to the Fitzwilliam I enjoyed 
watching the skill of George Carter, who gave us 
capital sport. He was reputed one of the best hunts- 
men of that day. He certainly could do what he liked 
with his hounds, and had a most wonderful knowledge 
of the craft. His intuition as to the line any fox was 
likely to take was weird. I remember on one day 
when hounds were run out of scent and the field had 
dwindled down to about half a dozen, his galloping 
some four miles on the roads, pulling up sharp in a 
lane at a small hole in a thorn fence, pulling off his cap, 
waving at the hole “ Yei in there ” and away we went 
for ten minutes fast and killed. 

Carter was a big and very heavy man, and never 
jumped a fence if he could help it at this time in his 
life, and had usually a whipper-in in attendance making 
gaps for him, pulling out rails and opening gates. 

For showing sport and making a good day out of a 
bad one I never came across a better huntsman tJian 
Lord Zetland’s Champion. He was a first-class rider 
to hounds into the bargain, and could lift hounds and 
get their heads down again in a way that is extremely 
rare. 

Polo was just beginning to make headway in 
England in 1876, and about 1877 we formed the first 



1 8 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

Polo Club at Cambridge. We numbered about a 
dozen members. The prime mover in this was “ Bill ” 
Ellis, *1 have forgotten his initials, and among the other 
names I remember were Bentley, Heygate, Hugh 
Fitzwilliam, “ B.” Haig, T. Carmichael, R. Lehmann, 
Barnard, and Kelsall. W^e had great fun. 

Later, when costly ponies became a necessity for 
match polo, only the wealthy could afford this best of 
all games. This expense led to the abandonment of 
polo at many places in the provinces, where it had 
afforded much fun and entertainment. You cannot 
now get the fun for your money which you could in 
my youth. 

Most of the records of my day have been eclipsed in 
athletics, cricket, and in other directions. The best 
players at all games do better than the best did in my 
time, partly because there are more players. But what 
strikes an old man is that they are less games and more 
business, more uniformity and tight rules ; with 
greater costs, less fun and less sport. 

It is even so in hunting. Whereas in old days there 
was great variety in the ways, fashions and ideas be- 
tween one country and another, and in the different 
styles, of hounds as well as in the hunting of them, it 
IS now reduced to almost “ sealed patterns,” of uni- 
formity in materials and character. The old varieties 
were pleasing, interesting and amusing. But one may 
be thanl^l that hunting still flourishes, for many 
people when I was a lad wagged their heads and said 
It could not survive railways, and when wire came 
proclaimed the near approach to its end. And here 
we are with, on the whole, far better hounds, far better 
horses, and more foxes than in the old days. 








/ vff f(> f 



CAMBRIDGE DAYS 


19 

As for the men, I expect they are as good ; but what 
with asphalted roads, wire, and one thing and another, 
they do not get the chance we had, and the first-class 
fox is hampered with civilization in like manner. 

The young women in the north now cut down the 
young men, but even fifty years ago we had up here 
some horny-skinned, hard-bitten old ladies who could 
hold their own with hounds, who must have begun 
their hunting before the accession of Queen Victoria. 
Of the Victorian young women, the less I say the better 
for fear of giving offence, as they are under a cloud, 
judging from many modern writers. 

In my day our Drag hounds were recruited from the 
too fast or riotous members of various kennels. I think 
our best or leading hounds were a couple of Devon and 
Somerset staghounds, but we had one or two who also 
flew their fences, which were in comparison quite small. 
Hounds that fly their fences add considerably to the 
pace on a burning scent. 

I may give a good instance of the “ homing ” instinct 
in hounds. The present Earl of Yarborough, M.F.H., 
was often out with us, and he sent me a few hounds 
from his Brocklesby Kennels, in Lincolnshire, in crates 
by rail in a passenger train to Cambridge. I kept them 
a fortnight in kennels, and then we had them out. 
After the Drag was over a couple of them were missing. 
One turned up a day or two after, but the other, an old 
dog-hound called Statesman, if I recollect his name 
rightly, was lost. Some weeks after Lord Yarborough 
told me the old hound had presented himself at the 
Brocklesby Kennels, having taken, as nearly as we could 
time it, fourteen or fifteen days to find his way home. 
I knew a similar case here where a sheep dog was sent 



20 


HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


by train from Tow Low in the west of Durham to my 
father’s farm in Cleveland (Yorkshire). It got loose 
the night it arrived and was back at home in a little 
more than twenty-four hours, the distance being some 
fifty miles, and, of course, much less than Statesman’s 
journey. I have come across this sixth sense also 
among primitive natives in Africa. 



Chapter III 


MEMORIES AND ANECDOTES 

I HAVE referred to my journal in 1878 and find the 
record of a longer drag than usual at Fox’s Bridge, 
and done in extra fast time — “ six miles and over in 
twenty-four minutes. I shall not live to see this beaten.” 

My brother won it on Election, a brown blood horse 
by Ballot. I was second on Gayhurst, having led till 
near the end, and Mr. W. H. ^rforth was third on 
his thoroughbred Wideawake. This was fifty-two 
years ago on November 23rd. 

I do not know what is the fastest six miles done with 
foxhounds. The fastest I have recorded is three miles 
straight in ten minutes over a stiff bit of country, but 
this does not come near Grand National pace. It in- 
cluded a very nasty in and out of a railway and a good 
deal of plough. It would be interesting to know what 
the experiences of others are as to the fastest pace done 
by hounds and horses in legitimate hunting. 

In the December of 1878 I had two horses at the 
Angel at Chippenham in order to hunt with the Duke 
of Beaufort’s. Hunting was stopped by frost most of 
the time, but on Saturday, December 28th, the frost 
had “ given ” sufficiently to hunt. We met at Bad- 
minton and I rode my little brown mare Gayhurst, men- 
tioned above, which I had bought that autumn at 
Tattersalls, at the sale of the Oakley Hunt cubhunters, 
for forty-five guineas. This was her last day. 



22 


HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


We had a very fast run and Dr. Grace (brother of 
“ W.G.”) and I were at last the only ones with the fly- 
ing pack. “ We tried a place beyond our powers,” I 
write ; “it was a stifle high wattled fence on a high 
bank, and we must have fallen ten feet on to otur backs. 
Dr. Grace got over, while we were on the ground, and 
must have had the finish to himself.” I rode my mare 
•' home, but she went queerly and became paralysed. A 
post-morten examination showed a dislocation of the 
spine above the tail. This is the only fall out hunting 
which I have had with fatal results to my horse. 

I have her hoof in my study. I note the day of her 
death. “ I said farewell to her and a few hours after 
her gallant little heart was still for ever. I cried to think 
she would never more carry me over the big Over fences 
and wide Cambridgeshire ditches, nor turn to welcome 
me into her box.” 

When I come to think of it, I have seen very few 
horses killed in the hunting field — ^perhaps four or five. 
The most singular death I remember was through a 
horse stepping on a broken draining tile on the margin 
of the high road. It tipped up and made a gash in the 
leg a little above the fore-fetlock, severing an artery. 
Handkerchiefs were made into tourniquets, but the cut 
was in between the sinew and the bone. A stone was 
inserted to stop the spouting blood under the bandage, 
but in ten minutes the horse was dead. 

I have had relations and friends killed out hunting, 
but have never seen anyone actually killed in the field. 

I remember a whipper-in being found dead with a 
broken neck in the corner of a covert just where he was 
posted, with nothing to account for it. 

One thing which strikes me is the distances we rode 



MEMORIES AND ANECDOTES 23 

in those days compared with what hunting people do 
now. At Cambridge we thought nothing of sixteen 
miles to Huntingdon to hunt. For yj. Sd. one hired a 
thoroughbred hack, attended lecture at 9 a.m., pulled 
off one’s trousers (which hid the breeches and boots) in 
the porter’s lodge, jumped on to the hack at Trinity 
Gate at 10.5, and galloped the sixteen miles on a grass 
margin under the hour. 

I mention a good day with good runs, at ho'me — : 
“ thirteen miles to covert and eighteen horrie — on 
Osman 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.” I often rode fourteen or 
fifteen miles to the Hurworth, and more than twerity 
miles home after a good day on one horse, while many 
other men did much more with two horses out. 

My love of wild animals led me in my youth, wheiiC 
I had the necessary energy and patience to devote to the 
task, to tame many of them, and my successful cases 
added joy to my life and amusement to my friends. 

I had given to me a vixen, already pretty tame, about 
the year 1880, which had been reared by a shepherd. 

I have seen many tame foxes, but this was by far the 
tamest I ever came across, and for nine years she was a 
household pet, the playmate of my terriers and of my chil- 
dren. During all those years she never once attempted 
to bite any human being, or any animal. She remained 
very shy with strangers to the end, and if anyone came 
into the room whom she did not know she would 
retire under the furniture, or if it was on the road would 
squat flat till the stranger moved on. 

Twice she absented herself for several weeks, but on 
both occasions returned home. She was very spoilt, 
for at teatime we used to allow her often to perform one 
of her clever tricks at the expense of the carpet. She 



24 half a century of sport 

would stand on her hind legs, get hold of the cream jug 
by the handle, lift it most carefully to the ground, and 
then knock it over with her little nose and^lick up the 
cream. I never had another fox as tame, as I have just 
said, but I managed to tame two badger cubs so that 
they followed me anywhere, and never did any harm. 
I had two other great successes — one was with a jackal 
and the other with a wild boar. 

One evening, in the ’nineties, I was talking to a 
Frenchman in Algeria, and said there was no animal, if 
you took pains enough with it, which could not be 
tamed. He said there is one animal no one can tame, 
and that is a jackal. I replied that I would see if that 
was so. 

A few days later I got a jackal about ten days old, 
and for weeks I kept it by day in my pocket and by 
night in my hat-box at my bedside. I spoon-fed it till 
I could get it to take a bottle. I often fed it four or five 
times in the night, and it grew up as tame as a dog. I 
did the same with the wild boar. 

Two things are necessary to success — one is constant 
handling, with continuous attention, without a single 
break, and the other the greatest care in the provision 
of perfectly new milk in scrupulously clean vessels. An 
animal which, when small, bites you, should be allowed 
to do so till it is tired. I have taught half-grown 
badgers to give up every attempt to bite by putting on 
hedging gloves and allowing them to bite as much as 
they liked, and persisting in handling them. It is use- 
less if you flinch or jump when they lay hold. 

I had all sorts of pets as a boy, but one experience 
stands out in my schooldays. I had come up to London 
for a visit to the dentist, and passing the Bank of Eng- 



MEMORIES ANP ANECDOTES 2^ 

land saw a man offering a squirrel for sale. The crea- 
ture was sitting quietly on his hand. I asked him if it 
was tame, he assured me it was, and I paid him half-a- 
crown for it. I then saw it was secured with a short 
string to his thumb. He slipped the loop off and 
shoved the squirrel into my pocket. Elated with my 
new possession I went to the dentist — an elderly 
Quaker of the name of Miles — and while he was intent 
on one of my molars the “ tame ” squirrel (probably 
caught that day in Epping Forest) suddenly leapt from , 
my pocket on to Mr. Miles. From thence it jumped 
on to his case of instruments, sent them, and bottles 
flying in all directions, then alighted on the mantelpiece, 
scattering china and bronzes. It next went round and 
round the pictures on his walls, and kept this business 
up with lightning speed. The dentist nearly fainted, 
and I was alarmed at the devastation. His butler was 
called in, and at last, with hands bitten to pieces and 
adding much blood to chairs and dental equipment, I 
secured my treasure and was shown the door very 
promptly, the stance having come to an untimely end. 

This story reminds me of another experience with a 
“ tame ” eagle owl when, some thirty-five years later, 

I was a resident magistrate in the Transvaal. I had a 
curious journey to make at least once a year to inspect 
a police post in the Sabi Game Reserve, a district now 
served by a railway, and on one occasion I took a fluffy 
young eagle owl from its nest in a cliff which I passed. 

I reared it and kept the great bird in a wire enclosure. 
It never was tame, beyond snatching meat from my 
hand and being indifferent to my presence. When I 
was about to relinquish my appointment I had to dis- 
pose of my pets. I got my successor to take charge of 



26 half a century of sport 

three dear little crocodiles I had hatched out of eggs I 
got when fishing for tiger fish in the Crocodile River, 
after court hours at Komati Poort, had turned thirty 
tame chameleons out, and got rid of everything but my 
■.enormous owl, when I bethought me of one Johnson, 
!,a Customs’ officer, who had pet monkeys and baboons. 
He and I had had a little difference over a matter where 
■ the Transvaal laws secured him from penalty, but not 
■'jfrom my censure. Some of our Public Works’ trans- 
port donkeys had got into his garden , and monkey 
ground, and Johnson, knowing the law, took his rifle 
and, shot them, then tossed the carcases outside his 
fholding. In the Transvaal you can legally do this with 
^y intruding domestic animal. I had not plotted 
revenge, but had it. I offered him my “ tame ” eagle 
owl ; he jumped at it, and later it jumped at him. With 
difficulty it was got into a very large hamper and de- 
livered to him. A week later I went to pay him an 
official farewell, and was astonished at his appearance. 
His face, hands and arms were covered with great strips 
of plaster and bandages. He received me in silence, 
and, looking over a mangled nose, said in answer to my 
question as to how he had got into such a mess : 
“ Didn’t you say that bird was a fame eagle owl ? ” 

I admitted I had so described it, but had used the 
adjective in a comparative sense, and regretted that he 
had taken my description so literally. I did not stop 
to inquire if it had gone the way of my Government 
donkeys, and I have heard no more of Johnson or the 
owl ; but it must have been a terrific battle. 

I think the last really wild beast I have tamed was in 
1909, when I had a place in Kenia. There was a semi- 
wild bush-cat which haunted the precincts of my com- 



MEMORIES AND ANECDOTES 


27 

pound at night. I am not a cat lover — cats and hyaenas 
I have little love for': — but I tried my hand at this very 
pretty wild thing, and she took to me so much that she 
would come at night and sleep in my camp-bed. My 
son-in-law, Captain W. S. Medlicott, and Hume ■ 
Chaloner, slept in the same room. The latter was kille^f 
in the War, but Medlicott can confirm my story. I 
awoke one night to find that my wild cat had produced ; 
two hot wet kittens under my arm between the sheefe.'v 
I had to have a bath and a change of pyjamas, and did 
not hear the last of the event for a long time. 

I still maintain the Scriptures are right — that all' 
animals have been, or can be, tamed by man ; but wit^,,.; 
some it is a work of great pains and patience. 
reward is an understanding of and sympathy- 
animate creation ; and a desire that no animal shall be 
exterminated is another result. 

I have had common rats as pets. Their intelligence, 
sensitiveness and aflfection is extraordinary. I know 
they are a plague, but I would not poison one nor trap 
one myself, yet I have enjoyed a good rat hunt as much 
as anyone when I was young. These paradoxes exist. 
The love of field sports awakes the greatest affection for 
wild life. In old age the desire to hunt merely to kill 
dies down, the love of beast and bird remains ; but 
without the hunting what would be left .? The enemies 
of animate creation are found among the enemies of 
sport. 

In the ’seventies my father and one of my uncles 
rented a small deer forest, reaching from the old Bridge 
of Dee up to the western end of Lochnagar and Loch 
Callater. It marched on the east with Balmoral, and 
included a little of the Ballochbuie Forest. It yielded 



28 


HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


very good stags, and we got some fine heads, but I only 
remember one stag which weighed just over twenty 
stone clean that fell to my rifle. It is the only one of 
this weight I ever killed in Scotland. 

I mention this place as it was here as a boy I first 
■ loosed off at red deer, and got into hot water over the 
business. My father and uncle had had a series of 
blank days, which I put down to the absurd mystery 
and formalities of Scotch stalkers. Indeed I have still 
•pretty much the same opinion, namely — that anyone 
with a knowledge of the craft and the natural instinct 
for stalking game and an eye for the country can do 
better alone than when under the guidance of the pro- 
fessional, with his code of procedure, and certainly has 
much greater enjoyment and satisfaction. 

Among the particularly vexatious rules of Scotch 
stalkers, to my mind, were the vetoes on shooting at a 
stag lying down or at one head-on to you ; for if you 
are above a stag which is lying down, to plump a bullet 
into his spine is a certain way of getting him, and it is 
a nice long target with heart and lungs below it. 

Xaking a beast head-on is my favourite shot, and was 
even more so in the days of express rifles and black 
powder, for the difficulty fken was to judge range, and 
a mistake of twenty yards in judging distance a serious 
matter. When a beast is head-on and head up you do 
imt want a better target, and range is of little account ; 
the head to the bottom of the chest is a long and deadly 

To return to my first stag.” One afternoon when 
my rather and uncle were planning a stalk at Loch 
Callater, I begged to go home and see if I could get a 
roe buck m the woods, and a .500 express Purdey rifle 



MEMORIES AND ANECDOTES 


29 

and four cartridges were handed to me, so off I went 
along the road to Braemar. When I had done about 
four miles I saw a herd of deer with a good stag and 
some young stags about half a mile off the road up a 
hill. I thought to myself, “ Now I will see if I cannot 
do what my elders seem to have much difficulty in 
accomplishing ! ” I saw that a burn which ran down a 
gully would lead me right up to them with the wind in 
my face, and I crawled steadily up the burn, determined 
not to look out of it till I got within shot of the big stag. ' 
When I raised myself I was in the middle of the lot, 
which had moved down a little, with the big stag one 
hundred yards off on my right. I fired at him and hit 
a “ nobbier ” about ten yards nearer to me, and the big 
stag departed ; but the hinds ran round me and some 
stood within forty yards of me. Three of these I laid 
low with my remaining three cartridges. I was fleet 
of foot for a boy, and had won my school quarter 
in fifty-fom: seconds, so off I went with a big knife in 
my hand after the wounded nobbier. 

I ran him to bay in a bog, and seized him by his 
short horns, with my knife in my mouth. He threw 
me about, but after a desperate struggle I killed him 
and went home for ghillies and ponies, and filled the 
empty larder with venison. When my elders returned 
with nothing, I confessed my sins and received their 
scoldings and met the fury of the old stalker very 
philosophically — for I felt if they only did things my 
way they would have a better time of it, even if they 
returned home all over blood and mud. At any rate, 
the larder was well stocked, which seemed to me quite 
a useful thing. But I was allowed out alone no more 
and was gradually broken in to the correct rules of a 



HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


30 

Scotch forest, which on one occasion led to my missing 
the chance of getting the finest Scotch stag I ever saw, 
for he was at least a fourteen pointer. 

We got to within one hundred yards of him, but the 
stalker had insisted on carrying the rifle and had the 
weapon still in its cover because it was raining (I) I 
^put my hand out for it, but when the stalker moved to 
\4i^w the cover off, the stag spotted him and was out of 
sight ik a few seconds, I suppose everyone can recall 
some particularly annoying failure when success was 
almost certain, and remember one or two achievements 
of no ordinary character. 

* My best stalking success, I shall always think, was 
one Sunday afternoon. When out for a walk with a 
companion I saw two hinds, one of which had with her 
a previous year’s son with some foxir inches of “ nobs ” 
on his head. They were all feeding with their heads 
away and the “ nobbier ” last. I said, “ Watch me 
stalk that youngster,” and I crawled through the 
heather, watching each one, and every time all their 
heads were down dragged myself nearer. With beat- 
ing heart I got to within a yard of my object, seized 
him by both hind ankles and swung him on to his back, 
sat on him and tied his hind legs together with my 
handkerchief, then sat on his head. He made such a 
terrific noise that after a while I freed him. 

I do not think this has often been done, probably 
because it would not occur to many persons to attempt 
it. You can occasionally, with a low sun in the face of 
a stag which is lying down or feeding, walk erect to 
TWthin shot of him. I have known it done, but have 
never done it in Scotland. 



Chapter IV 


THE EARLY EIGHTIES 

I N the summer of 1880 I bought one of 
Queensberry’s horses, Jerry-Go-Nimble, at Tatter- 
sail’s. He had won a steeplechase or two and was a 
beautiful-looking horse, by Lord Middleton’s Morocco 
out of a Turnus mare, and was very fast. But he had 
the most extraordinary one-sided mouth I ever came 
across. When galloping the only possible way to ride 
him was to use a snaffle and hold the near side rein with 
all your strength, and never touch the off side of his 
mouth (which maddened him), and steer by relaxing 
the tight side. I had some croppers before I discovered 
the trick, and even then he was terribly difficult to 
manage in a run. 

Lord Queensberry was a remarkably fine horseman, 
and advertised in the papers that “ anyone having this 
horse would find a purchaser in the Marquis of Queens- 
berry.” I wrote and told him where the horse was and 
he replied that he would buy Jerry-Go-Nimble for “ he 
was a brute to ride,” and he (the Marquis) was quite 
sure that no one could enjoy riding him.^ but he wanted 
him to race. Lord Queensberry gave me ,^150 for the 
horse and sent me more after winning the Melton 
Town Purse and another steeplechase a few weeks alter. 
I mention this because it is evidence of Lord Queens- 
berry’s skill, for I do not think any other living man 



HALF A 'CENTURY OF SPORT 


32 

could have won a race with this horse. I note in my 
diary that I covered nine miles with Jerry, partly on 
roads and lanes and partly across country, in twenty- 
four minutes. He certainly was the fastest horse I ever 
rode. 

The following entry may interest those who study 
the costs of hunting a country. At this time the Cleve- 
land Hounds hunted twice a week. The M.F.H. was 
Mr. John Proud, Will Nichol was huntsman, and we 
enjoyed very good sport. 

“September aist, 1880. — I attended the Hunt 
Meeting at the Buck Hotel, Guisbrough, Admiral 
.Chaloner in the chair. Mr. Proud, M.F.H., made his 
annual statement. He had carried on the pack and 
hunted the country for ;^7o8 ; total subscriptions were 
and he had overdrawn £^o — ^which Squire 
Wharton agreed to make good. His cost of keep of 
hounds averaged is. 6d. a couple per week, puppies 
counting four to the couple. He turned out the hunts- 
man and whipper-in well, and his bill for their outfit 
was only £26." 

Fifty years ago it was easier to find and to buy a 
hunter, but the best class, which, in my opinion, are 
the thoroughbreds, or “ all but ” clean-bred ones, were 
few and far between. I am often asked if hunters have 
improved, or the reverse, in the last fifty years, and my 
answer is that they have improved immensely, and that 
there are far more first-class hunters to-day than there 
have ever been. But then that is only my opinion, and 
based on the fact that I do not understand anyone who 
has had experience of clever thoroughbred, or practi- 
cally thoroughbred, hunters wishing to ride any other 
sort, and because there were fewer thoroughbreds bred 





THE EARLY EIGHTIES 33 

fifty years ago, and because half-breds were common ; 
the best class was more difficult to find. 

These are some thoroughbreds which will carry 
sixteen stone with ease, but the idea still prevails that 
you must have big bone and big animals to carry big 
weights — ^whereas it is not size of horse, bone, sinews 
and muscle as much as the quality of these which is 
important to the man who wishes “ to be there ” in the 
fastest or longest run. It is the difference between the 
finest wrought steel and rough cast-iron. 

The best half-bred weight-carrying hunters I have 
known ridden by first flight men were the result of the 
first and second-cross off Cleveland and Yorkshire 
coaching mares, but both of these latter breeds possess 
the best and stoutest blood in the General Stud Book, 
put into them in the eighteenth century in the days of 
four-mile heats and high weights. 

Wanting to replace Jeiry-Go-Nimble, I went up to 
Tattersall’s and spent a long day there. Having bid as 
high as I could afford for three horses I had selected, 
and having been outbid, I was about to leave the yard 
when I saw that the first of a lot of five very nice 
chestnut hunters, the property of a Captain Amcotts, 
of the 5th Dragoon Guards, were going to be sold. I 
had seen them pulled out many times early in the day 
and knew they would sell well. I think the first four 
went for about 200 guineas apiece, and I stayed to 
watch the fifth sold, and looked him well over in the 
archway. To my surprise he wanted shoeing very 
badly, and had a hind shoe off. He stuck at forty-nine 
guineas. I nodded, and he was knocked down to me 
for fifty. I followed him to his box, and asked the Irish 
groom with him : “ What is wrong with this horse ? 



34 half a century of sport 

I have bought him.” He said : “ Shure there’s nothin’ 
wrong with him.” “ But,” said I, “ why isn’t he 
shod ? ” “ Becoz,” said he, “ ye can't shoe him, nor 
clip him, nor physic him, but he’s as good a hunter as 
any of them.” 

I learnt that he had killed the last blacksmith who 
had attempted to shoe him, with many other terrifying 
particulars, but gathered that when you got used to his 
little failings he was a “ great horse ” over a country. 

He was a thoroughbred, but the catalogue descrip- 
tion of him was, “ Faraway, by Fairyland ... a good 
hunter.” He was six years old. This is one of the few 
hunters I shall mention which I have owned, for he was 
the most singular of all. It took nine men to get him 
shod, he never had a ball or physic, and in the three 
years I had him he was partly clipped three times, but 
had, of course, to be thrown to do it, and fought all the 
time. He would allow me and my stud groom into his 
box, and to put his bridle on, but anyone else he went 
for open mouthed and with his forefeet. If anyone had 
hold of his head, or was near it, no one could possibly 
mount him, but if you were alone with him the horse , 
stood like a lamb to be mounted. 

I won some little bets on this peculiarity. In the 
hunting field I would get on and off my “ lamb,” 
challenge anyone to do it, and leave the horse to two or 
three of the others, when one always held his head, or 
/ was^sometimes asked to keep a “ good hold of his 

head. No one ever got on to him until I had let the 
secret out. 

At the beginning of the day he was an accomplished 
buckjumper, but when hacking or hunting, anyone, 
once on him, could ride him with ease, and he was a 



THE EARLY EIGHTIES 


35 

delightful and brilliant performer in a run. He was 
very fast, could stay for ever, was never sick nor sorry, 
and was as hard as nails ; but this horse had another 
awkward idiosyncrasy in a run. You could not open a 
gate when he was warm nor get near one that was shut. 
He would dash through an open one. The consequence 
was that you avoided gates unless you were forced to 
jump them. He could jump anything which was jump- 
able and go like a bullet through a bullfinch. 

This was the horse which carried me through the . 
great run of January 9th, 1882, which was recorded in', 
the Field and of which I gave an account in Hunting 
Reminiscences, published by Thacker & Co., in 1898, 
under the heading of “ The Greatest Run I ever saw.” 

I have never seen its equal for distance and pace. It 
cannot be made less than nineteen miles, and was done 
in one hour and forty-five minutes, and was with the 
most wonderful of hill foxes. A very large proportion 
of the run was over open moorland with nothing to 
check hounds. During the last twenty minutes, out of 
eleven couples of survivors (a litde more than half the 
pack), four couples rolled over in the heather, one by 
one ; three died of exhaustion where they fell, and only 
seven couples got to the end. I have never known 
hounds die of exhaustion before or since. The other 
hounds stopped some hundreds of feet below me at a 
spot inaccessible in the dark ; whether they killed or 
ran to ground no one will ever know. 

One of the worst falls I ever had was with Faraway, 
and though he was in no way guilty I was so nearly 
killed that my family persuaded me to sell him. I did 
so for seventy pounds to James Darrel of West Ayton, 
who told me he sold him well in the Shires. I heard 



36 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

later that the horse had killed another blacksmith, but 
only heard this “ third hand,” and I hope it is not true. 
I ran him once in a “ hunters’ ” two-mile race at 
Redcar, when he started favourite, ran away with his 
jockey (one Rickaby), went half a mile out of the course 
at the top end, and finished second. Rickaby had a 
rough reception. The horse won a few prizes at shows, 
including the Cleveland Hunt Cup. 

In those days hunters in this and some other classes 
had to jump the fences and water jumps (but not the 
poles), which are now kept for the leaping classes. If 
this test were applied at the present time it would, I 
am afraid, very seriously diminish the entries, but 
would facilitate the work of the judges. I often wonder 
what percentage of modern show hunters are really 
hunters at all. I have known judges take a terribly long 
time in judging these classes, and have sometimes 
thought a speedier method of judging fat stock would 
be to pass it over the weigh bridge. 



Chapter V 


NOTES FROM MY DIARIES, 1 880-81 

I HAVE a long note in December, 1880, with in- 
formation about the Roxby Hounds in the eighteenth- 
century, most of which is embodied in my account of 
The Cleveland Hounds as a Trencher-fed Pack (published 
by Longmans in 1887) ; but I think the following run, 
which was not included, deserves to be recorded. 

It took place within the memory of one or two of the 
oldest members of the Welford family at Roxby — ^long 
before the 1817 amalgamation of the Roxby and 
Cleveland packs, but not earlier than 1780. It was 
said fifty years ago that one of the Welford family had 
a “ paper ” with the chief records of the doings of the 
Roxby Hounds in the eighteenth century, and this run 
was therein described. I give the note as I wrote it at 
the time it was related to me in 1880. 

“ The Welfords of Roxby kept large numbers of 
pigs and so did their neighbours, and it was the custom 
for each to lend a hand to the other when he had his 
pig-killing day in winter. The Welfords killed thirty 
and even more pigs on their day, and it took a number 
of hands to get through the job. On one such day about 
Christmas time Bush Billy, a noted foxhunter (or his 
father ?) and another sportsman came across the deep 
valley between Crinkle and Roxby to the Welford’s 
pig-killing. At 8 a.m., as they were ‘ climmin’ t’ 



^8 half a century of sport 

baank ’ (i.e. climbing up the hill) where the whins still 
stud the Roxby pastures, they saw a fox go into a patch 
of whins. 

“ One stayed to see that he did not go out, and the 
other ran on to Welford’s and shouted to him to get 
the fox nets at once. 

■“ The neighbours were all ready to begin their 
.sanguinary day’s work, and ‘ t’ watter was already 
bailin’,’ but off they went with the nets, not intending 
to Jlbandon the pigs, but to bag the fox for a hunt on a 
less ‘ thrang ’ day. 

“ I forget whether the fox escaped before the nets 
were set, or whether he got away while they were 
attempting to put him in the poke. But off he went, 
and the pig-killers ‘ called up ’ such hounds as were 
available (only five or six or seven hounds — I forget 
the number) and ‘ laid them on,’ and they all followed 
on foot. The hunt was a most extraordinary one. The 
hounds ran this fox from Roxby to Cargo Fleet, and 
killed him there at the River Tees, but none of the foot- 
men got farther than Birk Brow ; two couples of 
hounds apparently got to the end, one couple returned 
to Roxby the next day, and the other couple the day 
^ter that. On one of the latter was a collar and a label 
tied on to it upon which was written, ‘ Your hounds 
killed their fox at Cargo Fleet.’ 

“ Who saw the fox killed and sent the message I 
never heard, though it may have been on old Joseph 
Welford’s ‘ paper.’ But the feat for two couples of 
hounds is a most extraordinary one, for it is an eighteen- 
mile point on the map, but the country they traversed 

Chills, gills, moors and vale — could not be crossed in 
a straight line under twenty-four miles.” 



MY DIARIES, 1 880-8 1 39 

On December I3tli the Cleveland met at Kildale 
Hall, where Mr. Robert Bell Turton (now, 1930, 
Major and joint M.F.H. with Colonel Wharton of the 
Cleveland), who had just come into the Kildale Estates, 
was in residence. We had a fairly good day, but I 
mention it because of this latter part of my entry. 

“ We soon found another fox on Guisbrough Banks 
and ran him a ring several times . . . and then he-, 
crossed the valley from Skelton Warren to Coum Bank, 
In the valley Charlie, the Whip, and I saw a mysterious 
group of people in a field, three fields ahead of hounds. 
We galloped up and found it was a girl with a terrier 
and the fox tied to her apron string. The terrier had 
seized the fox as it came past her and she had tied her 
apron string to a hind leg. We let him loose, but 
hounds were too near and he was killed. This sporting 
damsel was a Miss Dale, a niece of Tom Andrew’s 
(formerly M.F.H. and huntsman) ; we gave her the 
brush. This makes the twenty-eighth fox this season.” 
(We were then only a two-days-a-week pack.) 

This winter (1880-81) was a very severe one, with 
more snow and harder frosts than we have had since, 
yet it was a great season for sport. We often hunted 
in the snow, and of one day I say horses were often 
“ up to the belly ” in the drifts. 

One of the coldest days I was ever out on was on the 
14th December, with the Bilsdale ; my father was 
there too. At the meet was a small group. “ Bobby 
Dawson, the whipper-in, a little old chap with a wizened 
pink face was standing near a moor gate. With his 
back to the wall (for shelter) in an ancient coat that once 
was pink, his hands in his breeches pockets, large old 
top boots, the tops the blackest ever seen, with a long 



HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


40 

hunting horn dangling on a string tied to his button 
hole, he held two old mares, and three singular looking 
hounds were hanging about. 

“ Richard Spink (brother of the huntsman, Nicholas 
Spink) came up on foot and took one of the mares. I 
asked where was Nicholas. Bobby said : ‘ He’s gone 
yam (home) as his awd woomon’s sick.’ He added, 
‘ Maist of our chaps is gone yam, they said ’twas ower 
caud fer owt, but there’s Mr. Spink and yan or twae 
oothers an we mun see if we can leight of a fox.’ Bobby 
continued to blow his horn and one by one hounds came 
up from the farms until we had seven couples. . . .” 

Once when we were about one thousand feet above 
hounds drawing the lower slopes there was a hound 
tonguing, and I drew Bobby’s attention to the fact. He 
said, “ Nay, it’s nowt but a hare. It’s that domned 
Seabright. Ah’ll flatten his ribs 1 ” I said, “ I don’t 
think you’ll get at him for a bit.” To which remark he 
replied, “ But Ah’ll be at him afore neet.” It was a 
poor day, and early in the afternoon we could stand the 
cold no longer and also went “ yam.” But long after 
we turned I could see old Bobby and Dick Spink trail- 
ing along on the sky-line of the Cleveland Hills. 

Bobby Dawson, by the way, died in 1 902, aged 
ninety-one, having hunted with the Bilsdale for eighty- 
six years, as he began when five years old. He died as 
he lived, talking and thinking of foxes and hounds, and 
desired to be buried in a sitting posture to better hear 
the cry of hounds in the Dale. His few personal 
belongings he bequeathed to good foxhunters. I forget 
who got his spurs, which had been the Duke of 
Buckingham’s, the first Master of the Bilsdale, until 
his death in 1687. His horn, which had been the 






MY DIARIES, 1880— 8 I 41 

propert}' of Forster, the Duke’s huntsman and successor 
and an ancestor of Dawson’s, was left to Mr. F. Wilson 
Horsfall, M.F.H. Among those present at the funeral 
were Mr. Wilson Horsfall, M.F.H., “ Nimrod ” Pear- 
son (of the Sinnington), R. Garbutt, ex-M.F.H., 
• Chapman Garbutt, John Garbutt, Dr. Snowden, Henry 
Chapman, Frank Dobson, Ben and Joseph Kitching, 
Seth Kirby, Stephen Ainsley, John Temple, Bell Medd 
and many others. 

I hunted with various packs in the North in the 
season of 1881, and had a few days with the Duke of 
Beaufort, one of which is stuck in my memory, for in 
a fast run from Foss Lodge four of us in the van tried 
to jump a river. One, an elderly peer, got over, the 
rest of us went in. My horse landed on the far side, 
but the bank breaking he fell back over and took me 
under him to the bottom. This was the nearest approach 
to being first drowned and then frozen to death which 
I had experienced when out hunting. 

When I hunted there I stayed with my father-in-law. 
Sir Robert Fowler, who died in 1891. He was M.P. 
for the City of London for many years and on two 
occasions was Lord Mayor. He hunted every day he 
could, and would come by night after his Guildhall, 
Mansion House, City Company dinners and from the 
House of Commons — ^the sittings of which he always 
sat out to the bitter end — and never turned home till 
hounds went back to kennel or he lost them. I always 
hoped he would lose them, for the most weary rides I 
have ever had were with him going home — often 
eighteen or twenty miles. He walked all the way and 
never wished to get back before dinner time, at 8.30. 

He was a peculiarly tough customer. His two meals 
c 



42 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

were breakfast and dinner — ^he enjoyed a bottle of port, 
and expected others to. He smoked cigars all the hours 
he was riding home and regaled me with long quota- 
tions from the Latin and Greek classics. He had the 
most phenomenal memory and could recite any poem 
which he had read, or the speeches he had heard, and 
astounded me by reciting on one occasion the whole of 
the third chapter of Hallam’s Middle Ages, which he 
told me he had read- three times — ^but that does not 
warm your toes on a winter night ! 

I mention this owing to a note in my diary that I 
had been immensely tickled by his practice when 
Sheriff of using his gilt State coach as a hansom-cab to 
catch his trains (for hunting) at Paddington, and that 
one day when I mentioned this to Sir Nigel Kingscote 
at Brooks’s, Sir Nigel said, “ I never laughed so much 
in my life as one day when Sir Robert was Lord Mayor 
to see him arrive in the Lord Mayor’s coach with the 
fat horses and coachman blown and dripping, having 
used his Lord Mayor’s privileges to the utmost, and 
driving miles to catch the train at Paddington to hunt 
with the Duke’s.” 



Chapter VI 


NOTES FROM MY DIARIES, 1881-82 

I T is curious to be reminded by my journal of what 
were still in the ’eighties the frequent battles between 
gangs of night poachers and keepers and watchers. 
These encounters were often of a sanguinary nature. 
As a rule the poachers were without firearms and 
keepers and watchers never carried them. 

Though in two encounters I remember two keepers 
were killed by poachers with guns, and another terribly 
maimed, these were cases of deliberate attempts to 
murder ; but as a rule the poachers carried stones, 
stockings full of broken glass, and sometimes flails and 
bludgeons. Keepers had their sticks (and useful ones) 
and their night dogs, mastiffs or half-bred mastiffs. 
Some of these gangs came from as far afield as Norfolk. 

The poachers began operations in July and August 
for rabbits, and would often succeed in getting several 
“ long net ” drives in one night — a. drive yielding from 
thirty to fifty rabbits and some hares. A week’s work 
might yield about thirty pounds worth of stuff, or more, 
for four to six men, if they had three good nights. It 
was a good thing to break up a gang early in the 
season. Here is an entry : 

“August 2nd, Tues. . . . One poaching case be- 
fore the Bench to-day, was one of ours. Our four 
keepers, after being given the slip two nights, on the 



HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


44 

third night out, the 29th July, managed to seize two 
men of a gang, by an alarm gun going off in the middle 
of their first drive ; Joe Welford’s dog proving of great 
assistance in the short encounter, four bludgeons, three 
hundred yards of netting, etc., and thirteen rabbits 
were taken — the keepers not badly hurt. The men 
got three months each.” , 

Of course, there was far more game and many more 
rabbits in those days. On my father’s place the rabbits 
were the main attraction, and were hard to keep down 
in many seasons. In some years about three thousand 
were killed and four hundred or more shot in the day. 

The following incident, recorded in my diary for 
August (in Scotland) still makes me smile. My younger 
brother (now Lord Gainford) had never shot a stag, 
and one day when he, a cousin of ours, the late Howard 
Pease of Otterburn, and I were shooting grouse on very 
hillocky ground near Loch Bulig, we saw one feeding. 
We laid our plans so well to move the stag up to my 
brother, between two hillocks, that the stag trotted past 
him at fifteen yards, at which distance my brother shot 
him dead with a charge of No. 5 shot in the neck. 

While the keeper was gralloching the stag, I 
watched my opportunity of blooding my brother, and 
clapped a great handful of gore on his face. He had his 
cap off and the keeper, Lundie, whose hands were 
enormous, seconded me before Jack could open his 
eyes, by adding a huge double-handful of blood on the 
top of his head, as being the proper area for the 
baptism. 

Jack thought we were overdoing the business and 
was angry and chivvied me over the moor, “ and though 
stronger, was not so fast on foot as I was. He nearly 



MY DIARIES, 1881-82 45 

caught me, however, for I was breathless with laughing 
at his anger and appearance No one can say he was 
not properly blooded ! Howard Pease was nearly 
dead, too, with laughing.^ 

I give a description of a day’s grouse driving with 
a local syndicate which put me off subsequent invita- 
tions of a similar sort, but which opened my eyes as to 
the conditions under which some of these shoots were 
conducted. The leading host was a most kind and 
hospitable man, but, as some of his guns were by no 
means safe shots, I had an adventurous day, for they 
started with champagne at 10 a.m., champagne for 
lunch, and champagne in the afternoon. 

There were plenty of grouse, and after lunch, as 
grouse were streaming over the butt on my left un- 
molested, and on the right my neighbour was oblivious 
of my presence, and I had to stand with my back to 
him, I ran to occupy the empty butt on my left, where 
to my surprise the occupant was lying fast asleep in 
mud and water. If or how they all got home I do not 
know, for the night was dark and thick and the roads 
were rough and slippery. They were drinking cham- 
pagne at 4 p.m., when I departed. 

I hunted a good deal with the Hurworth Hounds 
this season. Mr Cookson was the Master at this time. 
He was a good sportsman and rode well sometimes in a 
fast thing, but was of a somewhat fussy and excitable 
disposition when exercising his office as M.F.H., but 
being a great personal friend of my father’s he wel- 
comed me and I escaped all trouble. He was a success- 
ful breeder of racehorses. Few breeders have bred the 


^ My brother disputes the accuracy of my record and says that he had already been 
blooded when I added my dose, hence his effort to bring me to book. 



4$ HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

first and second in the same year’s Derby, but he did 
this in the case of Kettledrum and Dundee. He was a 
good performer on the violin and regularly took charge 
of a religious service on Sundays. Though his sermons 
were at times rather interspersed with expressions 
reminiscent of the Turf rather than of the Scriptures, 
I doubt if his congregation, which was largely com- 
posed of his own employees, would notice it. I can 
remember one or two instances, but they do not bear 
repetition in cold blood. They were not vulgarisms, 
however, or couched in strong language, but the natural 
terms used in his everyday life. 

I have always thought the Hurworth country one of 
the very best in the North to ride over. It is varied, its 
coverts are nicely distanced, the Cleveland Hills being 
the ultimate object of the stoutest foxes when they 
broke from whins far out in the low country. Many 
of their runs are straight and fast. 

During Cookson’s mastership I was often annoyed 
with some things. Hounds did not turn up when I 
had ridden many miles to meet them, they did not hunt 
because of rain, and hounds were given to hunting 
“ hare.” Later, things improved, but at this time foxes 
were scarce in the best parts of their country. 

There is an account on December 23rd of the lucky 
recovery of one of the cleverest and most charmi n g of 
wire-haired terriers. Both my brother and I had a 
number of these, most of which were bred and trained 
by us for badger, and several ran with the Cleveland 
Hounds. I never thought a terrier which would not 
go to ground to fox or badger deserved the name. 

On December loth. Jack (my brother) having gone 
to Hutton over the Sunday, left his terrier Jerry at his 



MY DIARIES, 1881—82 47 

quarters (my brother then resided with two maiden 
aunts at Southend, Darlington). On that night the 
servants let Jerry out and he was heard of no more. 
There was no immediate anxiety, for on occasion he 
would take the road or train to Hutton (some twenty- 
five miles distant) where my brother kept his beagles 
and where he spent much time. When inquiries began, 
it was learnt that a terrier had got into the night mail 
train at Darlington and had selected a first-class com- 
partment and the Duke of Portland’s company for the 
journey. The Duke, I think, had been hunting from 
Cliffe. 

The Duke took the little stranger to Grosvenor Place 
and wrote to the Darlington police. However, on 
Monday, December 1 2th, Jerry slipped his collar and 
made off again. The Duke wrote to Jack to tell him, 
and the latter advertised in the Standard, Daily News 
and Lloyd’s Weekly, Through this he heard of him at 
Croydon on the 22nd, and Jerry arrived at Darlington 
that night. He was received again into the bosom of 
his family and the fatted calf was slain. 

This day I went round the town and stopped to look 
at the Christmas beef. The chief feature in the show of 
carcases was a prize bullock of my uncle, Arthur 
Pease’s, 139 stone. I heard one woman gazing at it 
(a farmer’s wife) say, “ Aw ! What a dredful waaste 
o’ fat 1 Aw, shameful.” “Aw, boot it’s very beautiful 
to look on 1 ” said her companion. “ Aye, it es,” said 
the first, quite overcome with the beauty of the scene : 
enormous hunks of white fat with a slight pink streak 
in it. 

On December 28 th I note the news of the death, on 
Christmas Eve, in Madeira, of Viscount Helmsley, 



48 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

M.P. His father, the first Earl of Feversham, had 
been Master of the Bedale, and Lord Helmsley, when 
twenty-two years old (1874) was elected M.P. for 
the North Riding. His death, at the age of thirty- 
three, was a great shock in this part of Yorkshire, as he 
was the only son and heir to more than thirty-nine 
thousand acres of land in the Riding and a particularly 
promising and handsome man. He left one son, who 
succeeded to the earldom and was Master of the 
Sinnington. He too met an early death, falling on the 
field of honour on September 1 5th, 1 9 1 6, a date I well 
remember, as three of my cousins were killed in 
action on that same day. 

The season i 88 i -52 was a remarkably good one in 
Cleveland. Even in March, when I describe most 
days in such terms as “ Another very hot, dry day, 
everything quite baked, the ground cracking and like 
riding on flags,” we seem to have had a scent and 
excellent runs all through the month. 



Chapter VII 


VARIOUS RECORDS OF 1882 

Q uestions of agriculture to-day invariably pro- 
duce a diversity of opinions, and it is amusing to 
revive a discussion on farming in the ’eighties. 
Attending a Chamber of Agriculture meeting I sum- 
marize “ the paper ” by W. S. Dixon on “ Stock and 
Txurnips ” and the debate thus in my diary : 

“ fVm. Scarth Dixon. Cleveland a bad sheep coun- 
try (which it is not), therefore our attention must be 
turned to beef. Nowadays ‘ beef ’ could not be made 
without turnips (which it can). Cleveland a bad turnip 
country (sometimes), therefore spend ;£i5 an acre on 
manures to produce ,{12 of turnips. Pulp them, mix 
with chaff and treacle, and there you are — Beef ! 

“ Jas. Rutherford said a pocketful of sovereigns was 
a good thing, but not if you had to pay a guinea apiece 
for them, and he preferred cotton cake. 

“ Ralph Robinson's contribution : He didn’t believe 
‘ i’ paapers, booklarnin’ an traycles’ in farming — but in 
‘makkin’ farmin’ pay; least waays this west’ best 
thing to his mind.” 

My last day with hounds in 1882 was on April 6th, 
though this did not end the season (Easter Monday 
being the usual last advertised meet). It was a good 
last day with a “ tremendous forty minutes from Roxby 
to Moorsholm, the last five minutes in view.” This 



HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


50 

was our fiftieth fox (two days a week pack). Will 
Nichol (the huntsman) came to grief twice. His “ old 
Plato ” coming down on the road once broke his knees, 
and I got bogged in a gateway (such are the Waupley 
farms 1 ), but got out after a little trouble. In such a 
good season there had been much grief and I had my 
share of falls. 

. The hunting season of 1882 being practically over, 
my brother and I took our team of terriers for a badger 
hunting tour in the beautiful counties of Herefordshire 
and Gloucestershire. As we had six terriers with us 
in a compartment and added to our team on our travels 
we went third class. 

In those days one had greater liberty on the railways, 
and as a party we afforded some entertainment to the 
railway staff and passengers. On a recent expedition 
of a similar character in Cornwall we had added to our 
team a very curious specimen appropriately called 
“ Nip.” He was a very competent performer under- 
ground and would lie up to a badger for hours.’ He 
loved darkness rather than light and was always 
reluctant to return to the daylight. This was his fault 
and we had often to dig to him to get him out, and his 
temper was such that at times we could only extract 
him with the badger tongs. He was a smooth-coated 
cross, about one-third bull terrier and two-thirds fox 
terrier. 

When I speak of fox terriers I allude to the real 
smooth fox terrier of that time, and not to the miserable 
weak, snipey muzzled, long-legged, modern things you 
see at shows which could not get to a fox, nor hold a 
badger, and half of whose faces would get bitten off in 
a “ turn up.” The primary qualification of a terrier 



RECORDS OF 1882 jfl 

is to be a terrier, a goer to ground. The modern show- 
bench specimen is no more a terrier than the modern 
Airedale — they are useless for their mdtier. 

We had a troublesome journey, as terriers are excite- 
able little brutes and given to much internecine strife. 
If one starts a row, they are all in it in a minute, and as 
for Nip he always went to ground as far as he could 
under the seat. At every change (and we had many 
before we landed up at the Green Dragon at Hereford) 
he had to be drawn with the tongs. 

During this trip we were hospitably entertained by 
Mr. and Mrs. Edwards at a beautiful old moated manor 
house, Brinsop Court, and while there had a warning of 
the danger of tunnelling. We had found a single hole 
on the hillside at Credenhill Park, in which Brock was 
at home. We had a good force of willing hands with 
the pick and spade and drove a drift straight into the 
hill between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., then when we had got 
more than thirty feet into the hill we reached rock. 

It was the most stupendous bit of work in a day after 
a badger I had ever seen. Three terriers in turn had 
stuck to the badger, which was now in the rock at the 
end. The only chance of getting him was to crawl up 
to the end with the tongs. I, being the least bulky 
person, went in with Nip to protect my head from a 
charge, A man lying flat behind me held my ankles, 
and another behind him, so that we formed a human 
chain to daylight. It was pitch dark at the end and a 
candle would not burn. At last I got hold of something 
with the tongs under the rock and gave the word to 
pull us out, and drew the badger. Lucky it was I had 
Nip in front of my face, for I had only got him by a 
fore-pad. We were ail drawn out by die farm hands. 



52 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

who shouted, “ He’s got him by the dee ! He’s got 
him by the dee! ” 

We were all just out when the whole tunnel collapsed 
— a few moments earlier and three of us would have 
certainly been buried alive. No doubt the tremendous 
scuffle as the whole bouncing mass of us, badger and 
Nip were drawn out “ brought down the house.” 

This was a big badger and weighed about thirty 
pounds. He was turned out with others at home after- 
wards. The largest badger I ever handled was a sow 
of thirty-five pounds, dug out at Pinchinthorpe. I 
have weighed few badgers which scaled more than 
twenty-seven or twenty-eight pounds. 

On another day we came upon a vixen and cubs laid 
in with badgers. I took a fox cub home with me to 
keep as a pet. She became tame and lived in the 
scullery mostly, but during an absence from home she 
got wild and snappy, and I let her go, thinking a cross 
of Hereford might not be a bad thing. 

We had a by-day at Brinsop in the stackyard, where at 
one stack our terriers killed eight hundred rats and mice. 

Our next quarters were at the George Inn, Birdlip. 
‘ We had some pleasant days about there and some good 
digs at Misarden, but none of the badgers weighed 
over twenty-two pounds. 

We took our now well-scarred team and badgers 
home early in May, but presented Nip' to a Misarden 
gamekeeper who was struck with his valour, which, to 
tell the truth, we were rather tired of, as it was practised 
on every kind of object. If there was nothing else to 
seize he would hold on to a stone as if his life depended 
on never leaving go. He was what they call in Cleve- 
land a real “ niwer gie ower.” 



RECORDS OF 1882 53 

No doubt for a last resource and for a tight corner, 
a terrier with a cross of bull terrier in him is very 
valuable, but the most desirable one for both fox and 
badger is one that “ lies up ” for the longest period 
making plenty of noise, and engages the enemy per- 
sistently "without laying hold and yet will -withstand the 
rush of a badger. You never want a fox to be hurt, 
and I never want to hurt a badger. The terrier which 
lays hold of a badger may be terribly mauled or even 
killed. 

Two breeds of terriers common enough in the North 
fifty years ago have disappeared. Both were hard, 
game and excellent for every class of terrier’s job, and 
both in size were similar to the short-legged wire- 
haired fox terrier (not to the hea-v)', long, clumsy Sealy- 
ham type). Curiously enough, one of these breeds 
was always just a “ terrier,” all other breeds being dis- 
tinguished from it by a prefix such as fox, wire-haired, 
Welsh, Irish, Dandie Dinmont, etc. This breed was 
“ The Terrier.” They were rough-coated, “ sandy and 
grey,” “ grey and fawn ” to Airedale colour, with 
rather short, blunt muzzles. The other, the smooth 
black-and-tan, was possibly the breed from which the 
modern long-legged creature seen at shows has been- 
evolved, for its coat and colour were the same, if it 
had no other common points of resemblance. I have 
an oil-painting of a celebrated Roadster of my father’s, 
in a loose box with one of these black-and-tans in the 
straw, Piper, the last of the breed which we had. 
These, like the Roadster, are now extinct. The best 
dogs for badger are wire-haired terriers, short-legged 
strong fox terriers, Scotch terriers, and, perhaps the 
best of all — dachshunds of the right sort. 



54 


HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


This was a very good grouse year (1882) in Aber- 
deenshire. On August 1 2th (five guns), over dogs in 
two parties, we shot 194 brace, and many good days 
followed. We began driving with six guns (some days 
seven) on August 26th, with bags of 140 brace and 
over ; over 50 brace most days until September 4th, 
when we were reduced to four guns. On this last day 
we got 8 1 brace. 

My father’s headkeeper was a great character, and 
held this post for more than thirty years until his death. 
He was a stern and noisy dog-breaker, and no matter 
how we disliked it he would do his schooling in the 
middle of a day’s shooting if a pointer ran in or com- 
mitted any breach of discipline. 

When my father first engaged him he brought with 
him from Northumberland a hideous vocabulary, and 
was told that certain words would not be tolerated. I 
give on a day when we had an exasperating amount of 
discipline a list of his now modified expressions ad- 
dressed to his victims in what we called “ Briggs’s 
Whisper ” — z whisper you could hear miles away, and 
which made the hills resound. 

: August 2 1 St, 1882. I shot to-day with my father 
and Howard Pease, but we had such a breaking-in of 
young dogs, such whistling, such language on the part 
of Briggs. “ Dod shatter yer redhotted hug-ly heead,” 
“ Dod burn yer, ye nasty rooshin hammer-headed 

brewte,” “ Dod pleg yer, yer wyuld creetur,” “ 

yer, ye nasty ketty brewte.” He was a curious mixtxire 
of brutality and sentiment, for picking up a snipe he 
laid it on his hand and said in a low voice, full of 
emotion : “Oh, poor little feller 1 ” 

At one time-when I was much interested in the dogs, 



RECORDS OF I 882 


55 

a lemon-and-white pointer, Major, had most curious 
expressions of disgust, anxiety and horror, which in 
turn passed over his very expressive face, as he fancied 
he had birds, then was sure, and then all suspense. He 
nearly frightened me with one of his painful back 
glances, showing the whites of his eyes and jaws shak- 
ing, saying as plainly as words : “ How much longer 
am I to stand like this, with cramp to the tip of my tail ? 
And if these birds get up they will give me such a turn, 
I shall die in a fit; the strain is too terrible.” Briggs’s 
remark was “ Look at him ! All of a tremor ! All of a 
dother ! Oh, the nasty excitable natur of the ketty 
creatur ! ” The bag that day was 9 1 brace (five guns). 

Queen Victoria generally called at Corndavon each 
season, but oftener at the cottages in Glengairn, where 
our ghillies lived. We had one old man there, by name 
John Lee, but known as “ John the Wobster,” to dis- 
tinguish him from other Johns. At another place I 
shot at called Garrogie, when the late Mr. E. N. 
Buxton rented it, one of the Johns there resented the 
prefix which adorned his name as a distinguishing 
mark, saying to my brother-in-law, Gerald Buxton, 
“ It is a durrty name they would be calling me, ‘ Worrm 
John.’ ” It had become his title from the frequency 
with which he was sent to collect worms for the 
“ fushing ” by the young Buxtons. Our John was a 
weaver, and we wore his excellent home-woven stuff. 

This year, when the Queen drove up to his hovel in 
Gairn Shiel, John stepped up to the carriage in his shirt- 
sleeves and greeted Her Majesty thus : “ Wull, so yer 
have come ! ” When asked how he and his wife had got 
on with Her Majesty, he said : “ Mary was some shy, 
but I ken weel hoo te talk to this class o’ perrson.” 



Chapter VIII 


SCOTLAND AND SPORT, 1882-83 

I N October of 1882, my brother and I returned to 
Corndavon alone for ten days, in which time, with 
hard work, we annexed 13 stags, 2 roe, 75 brace of 
grouse, several salmon and i grilse, besides trout, 
hares, rabbits and woodcock. We began our days in 
the dark and were out till dark. We both managed to 
do the trick of a stag, grouse and salmon in a day. 

Next year on January 9 th we had the great run 
alluded to before as the best I ever saw— which has 
been described in print. A very fair account of it 
appeared in the Field over the nom-de-plume “ Open- 
Weather.” 

In February I was staying with a cousin of mine, 
Edwin Pease, who afterwards died from a hunting 
accident, to hunt with the Hurworth, but had poor 
sport. I appear to have been very much tickled with 
one of my fellow guest’s account of an accident he had 
witnessed with the Hurworth, when a lady had got a 
ducking. It was a long story about very little, and feel- 
ing that the narrator had dined well we sat silent during 
the recitation, watching his face very pale and drawn 
and his eyes round and bulging with the horror of the 
scene he described. Having concluded, he looked from 
one to another of us repeating over and over again in a 
lost sort of way, as if not quite satisfied with his 



SCOTLAND AND SPORT 57 

metaphor and grammar : “ As near drownded as a 
whistle I ” 

Here is a day (November 6th, 1882) which is inter- 
esting locally as the finish was in what is now the middle 
of the town of Middlesbrough, but then the open fields 
of Swatters Carr. It started after denunciations of 
some vulpicidal landowner in our west and best coun- 
try : who “ in his meanness had sent his keepers 

through the coverts just before we came up as he heard 
we were coming.” 

However, “ Will ” (the huntsman Nichol) saying 
nothing more than that he would like to burn him, went 
on to Seamer. Xhere we found at once, and away we 
went, first for Stanley Houses, then left to Severs’ 
Plantation, then straight for Maltby, and it was evident 
we were in for a good thing. I got away first on 
Faraway jumping some good fences. Will cut in, then 
Ben ; a few more as we turned by Stainton tried in vain 
to catch us across country, and then took to the roads. 

Hounds streamed away, heads up and sterns down, 
and Faraway came on leaving field after field behind 
him without the slightest effort, taking everything just 
as it came. Will and Ben, the whipper-in, were close 
at me, but the Blue Bell Beck pounded them, while 
Faraway kicked it behind him like a ditch. 

From Acklam we raced on towards Marton with the 
leading ten couples drawing away from the rest, and I 
found myself steeplechasing straight away for Middles- 
brough. My horse was still reaching at his bridle and 
going free and well ; and then we got to a place where 
I thought we should be down or pounded, stiff high 
rails and the Marton Beck beyond — about twenty feet 
of water. It was grass and down-hill slightly to it, and 



58 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

he landed - a full yard beyond it all. We were now 
among suburban houses and roads. Here Will came 
up on Ben’s horse, and then followed James and Miss 
Rutherford, Bob Brunton, W. Scarth Dixon. In a few 
minutes we ran into the fox in the open on Swatters’ 

■ Carr after forty-five minutes of the best over a line of 
about nine miles. 

. I took the brush, and consider this to have been the 
best cross-country run I had ridden to in Cleveland so 
fair'. My brother lamed his horse the first go off. I wish 
he had been in it, but he got there on Sligo before we 
started for home. Bob Brunton the next day measured 
Faraway’s big jump, from taking off to landing the hind 
hoof marks — twenty-seven feet. 

On New Year’s Day (1883), in a very good run, I 
had the worst hunting accident of my life through 
checking my horse Faraway before a high stiff thorn 
fence, with a big drop beyond. The horse caught a 
foot in the top of it and turned completely over. He 
fell on to the top of me, breaking my ribs into my lungs 
and breaking my right shoulder blade, with other 
^•injuries to my head and neck. It was six weeks before 
I got home, and I was very lucky to do that, though I 
' fell within a mile-and-a-half of my house. 

During convalescence I must have been looking at 
some old hunting records as I have noted some ‘remark- 
able runs, e.g., I give a copy of the account of a marvel- 
lous hunt on “ Thurs., 19 Nov., 1776,” “ from Lyde 
Green, near Bristol,” without saying which pack. “The 
estimated distance of the run was 50 miles,” “ two 
rings in the Vale 15 miles, then to the hills, first to 
Sir Wm. Codrington’s Woods at Doddington, then to 
the Duke of Beaufort’s Woods, Didmarston (with other 



SCOTLAND AND SPORT 


59 

particulars), 6 couples out of 17 couples killed their 
fox,” “ the largest seen in those parts,” “ between 
Kilcott and Forcester.” 

Another, “ Oct. 13, 1733 — ^ ^ind hunted on Sun- 
bury Common, crossed the Thames 3 times, ran the 
same ground over again, affording such excellent diver- 
sion that His Majesty ordered her life to be spared and 
a silver collar put about her neck.” 

Another, “ Ralph Robinson,” an old farmer and 
tenant of my father’s, “ told me when I asked him if he 
remembered Ralph Lambton that he remembered as a 
lad seeing Ralph coming into Bishop Auckland streets 
on foot with one-and-a-half couple of hounds with a fox 
dead-beat a few yards in front of them, and calling out 
‘ Huic to Jingler ’.” The fox was lying down in the 
main street and the hounds, quite done, were unable to 
touch him, lying down beside him. Lambton gave them 
some minutes, but as they could not tackle him, had 
the fox picked up and turned away free somewhere near 
Sedgefield where the pack had found him. 

I was able to hunt for some weeks, before the end of 
the season, and had some good days with the Zetland. 
I mention some who were first-rate men with these 
hounds, such as Lord Henry Vane, who was always at 
the “ top ” of a hunt in any country, and a hard man to 
beat ; Lord Castlereagh ; St. Lawrence, Matheson. I 
remember that there were others like E. R. Whitwell, 
who was a desperate hard rider and a good weight. He 
was of the crasher description, and often on the floor 
and at times “ severely wounded.” J. B. Dale (now 
Sir James) was then often in the front, and there were 
other good men. 

Champion, the huntsman, was always there ; he was 



6o 


HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


well mounted, but careful ; be was a splendid hunts- 
man, and no man could make a bad day into a good one 
so well. I wrote : “ I am much impressed with the 
Zetland hounds ; you cannot watch more beautiful 
working hounds ; they are fast, carry a splendid head, 
and every one of them works and backs up immediately.” 

There was much snow and frost in March. Both 
during this and the previous season in Cleveland there 
was a bob-tailed fox who frequently gave us a run, and 
which every time was found at Hutton Lowcross and 
lost at Upsall, or vice versa, ^hese places ’were four 
miles apart, and he ran very direct. 

On the “ 3 1 St March . . . Found the 2nd fox, the 
bob-tailed one, in Bousdale (Hutton), which has given 
us some capital sport before this season, and always 
escaped, as he would have this day if he had not been 
so unlucky as to be view-holloa’d at least four times 
when we were just giving him up. ... I was sorry 
to see him killed. . . . Tom Fowler (the late Sir 
Thomas, killed in action 1902 in the Boer War — ^he 
was my brother-in-law) taking the 4 inches of brush, 
after i hour and 20 mins, with him, to show the Duke 
of Beaufort’s people the sort of brushes we grow in 
Cleveland.” 

“ 6th April. ... To the Bilsdale Hounds at Bays- 
dale Abbey, a lovely day on the moors, got there 10.30, 
and had to wait three-quarters of an hour for the 
hounds, which arrived in couples. Before their arrival 
we were horrified to gather that they were going to hunt 
a baggie, for the old lady of the place ran out and ex- 
claimed : ‘ Hev ye coom ti see t’fox ton’d off ? ’ ” . . . 

After milk and cakes in her parlour she persuaded 
me to come and see the fox. He was a splendid speci- 




RALPH LAMBTOV OV FOOT TllRLF. IIOI’SM)'; WI) 




SCOTLAND AND SPORT 


6i 

men, and certainly looked very comfortable with the 
greater part of a lamb, a fresh hare, and other dainties 
around him. When I remarked it was a pity to hunt 
him (for he had a poor chance after a fortnight’s high 
living, whatever law they gave him — and they gave him 
ten or thirteen minutes’ start), I was assured that they 
had hunted him several times. He had always beaten 
them, and as they had had nine blank days that season 
they persisted. 

He was “ ton’d off ” half-a-mile away, and the pro- 
cession of Nicholas and Richard Spink, Bobby Dawson 
and one other returned on foot to the Abbey, got their 
horses and “ loused t’hounds out of a barn.” To my 
surprise they all went off/a// cry in a bee line, not by the 
track the procession had taken, to the very spot where 
he had been freed. It reminded me of my Cambridge 
Drag days, when every hound knew where the line 
started. I asked how it was : “ Whya ? Coss it’s 
t’pleeace where they set him down t’last time, and 
t’time afore that.” They killed him, I am sorry to say, 
this time. 

In April the Cleveland met at 6 a.m., and really in 
April and May, as soon as it is light is the right time 
for hunting, and I remember delightful May mornings 
on the moors with a good scent from 6 a.m. to lo a.m. 
This is the time to kill moor foxes, and old dog foxes 
suspected of killing little lambs. A dog fox on the 
moors in May, having had his hunt and ramble, when 
the sun gets up lies snug and is soon fast asleep. Not 
only may you at times get a good hunt starting, on 
their night “ drag,” but you surprise them asleep, and 
woe betide the fox that only gets a hundred yards start 
in the long heather. 



62 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

The vixens are otherwise engaged, and in May no 
night “ stopping out ” is permissible. I do not re- 
member a vixen being killed on the moors in May. 
Nowadays for some mysterious reason, we never kill a 
May fox and stop hunting in April and, what is worse, 
the more need there is to be out early the later we meet. 

In Cleveland now, we meet at noon in the spring — 
I suppose it suits a lazier generation. I cannot think of 
any other reason, and it must be pure laziness, for I 
am sure the present generation is capable of the same 
exertions and is physically as good as any other. 

When I remember stable habits of forty years ago, 
all the men were up at 5 a.m., all the stables mucked 
out, all the horses well groomed, and the hunters all 
exercised and home and put to rights by 8.30 a.m. In 
my father’s stables the men were called at 4 a.m., and 
in 'bed at 8 p.m., and all was shipshape by 8 o’clock 
breakfast, and at 9 a.m. all the orders for the day were 
delivered to the head coachman on his slate, the orders 
„for hunting being sent in the evening previous. 

My last day with the Cleveland was April 14th. Up 
before five, at Skelton at six. We had a good run and 
I was at a meeting of the Local Authority at ten. Then 
my brother and I collected our terriers and went olF 
to Radnorshire, and on the i yth met Frank and Chase 
Green-Price at Witton Cross Roads. We had a success- 
ful dig at Monaughty and were much aided on this and 
another day by a posse of “ Rebecca’s daughters.” 
The heaviest badger we got was twenty-six pounds. 



Chapter IX 


WALES AND ELSEWHERE IN 1883 

D uring my varied hunting experiences I recol- 
lect one really good day, from New Radnor, with 
hounds, when I rode the Knighton Station bus horse, 
and was out of the best part of the run, which was over 
the Craggies, 2,200 feet high. My brother, on a horse 
of Dick Green-Price’s (Odd Trick), and the whipper-in 
had the best of a “ famous run.” Jack got the brush ; 
I only got to the end by “ a most disgraceful amount of 
road riding ” for which my mount was best qualified. 
Colonel Price (the M.F.H.) did not seem to us a 
“ genial man, but has the character of having been a 
good man to hounds all his life.” 

It was the Green-Prices of Radnorshire who intro- 
duced us to another beautiful bit of country for another 
turn at badgers. Sir Richard was then Liberal M.P. 
for Radnor Boroughs. His eldest son, popularly known 
as “ Dauntsey Dick,” and Frank and Chase, his step- 
brothers, and nearer my age, were all at home ; another • 
brother, Alfred, was at Cambridge with my brother. ’ 
We could not have had greater help, for we were 
taken otter hunting with Geoffrey Hill’s celebrated 
pack ; foxhunting with Colonel Price, who then had 
the West Hereford and Radnorshire Hounds, and they 
procured permission for our attacks on badger strong- 
holds. Frank Green-Price was one of the cheeriest and 



64 half a century of sport 

bravest of young sportsmen, and I still think of Viim 
and feel the tragedy of his death when he broke his 
neck in a steeplechase at the age of twenty-one. 

I remember the first morning we met him at the 
door of his father’s house, to see if any of them were 
.going to hunt. He came out to meet us in ordinary 
shooting kit and said, “ Wait a minute and I will be 
with you.” He pulled off his jacket in the entrance, 
popped on a well-weathered red coat lying on a chair 
in the hall, seized someone’s squash-opera-hat off a 
table, sprung it open, clapped it on his head, and ran 
off to the stables. In a few minutes he and his brothers 
and we were cantering on to the meet. 

I was interested in the pack. Among it were not a 
few of the rough-haired Welsh hounds, and I must 
say they were a grand lot at their work, real stickers, 
both in covert and on a line, and with better and more 
voice than English foxhounds. They were mostly very 
light coloured, grey and white, which I like. 

Though I understand the taste of Masters in adding 
something like uniformity in colour to a pack I prefer 
variety, because in every attempt at uniformity you 
must sacrifice, by limiting your choice, the greatest 
desiderata in a pack — their hunting characteristics, 
nose, voice and the rest of them. 

Colonel Price gave me one of these Welsh hounds 
called Malster, because he was too fast, and when he 
joined the Cleveland he outran all other hounds and 
killed every fox far ahead — even when fed before hunt- 
ing — ^he had a magnificent voice, and used it on a cold 
or hot scent. 

The day after the “ famous run,” Powlett Milbank 
(who afterwards married one of the Misses Green-Price 



WALES AND ELSEWHERE 


65 

and was a friend of mine) and Chase Green-Price joined 
uSj and we had a good dig at Squire Moore’s, at Dollaw. 
We carried off two old and three young badgers that 
day by 6.30, and got “ home ” at 9 p.m. Another 
day’s (April 24th) foxhunting at Black Yat finished our 
time at Norton Manor and in those parts. We had 
a cargo of badgers and terriers to transport, and Mal- 
ster, by Llanowan Miller out of Llanowan Beauty, was 
handed over to John Proud, M.F.H., at the Warrenby 
Kennels. He did not say much, but when he had 
gazed at the hound’s long head and long, rough coat, 
you could see he did not reckon him to be a foxhound 
at all ! But he was, and I should like to have a whole 
pack of Malsters. They would leave J.P. behind and 
make our hill foxes cry capevi. 

I see I also brought home Odd Trick (by Needle 
Gun, dam by Hereford, g. dam by Sir Hercules), hav- 
ing paid Dauntsey Dick thirty-five pounds for him — 
he was a perfect snaffle-bridle hack and hunter. The 
following season I sold him to James Darrell for fifty 
pounds, who passed him on to Captain Johnstone, 
M.F.H. (afterwards Lord Derwent), for ,^120, and he 
carried Miss Johnstone for several seasons. I think 
the horse was well worth the money, and I like dealers 
of the class of the Darrells to make a good profit, for I 
know — shaving gone through some of the big dealers’ 
“ bought and sold ” ledgers — ^when I was studying the 
proportion of English, Irish, American and German 
and French horses passing through their hands, that a 
dealer’s profits does not exceed ten pounds a horse on 
the average, and is generally less when establishment 
charges, keep, vets., etc., are calculated. If he gets 
through one hundred horses at ten pounds profit, his 



66 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

net gains are one thousand pounds — and well earned. 

In August, in Aberdeenshire, the weather was so 
atrocious we did not make a start at the grouse until 
August 14th, and then it was pouring wet and we only 
did “ outsides.” “ Birds as wild as September, the 
rain drenching, wind, the pointers Fop, Brag and 
Chance as wild as the birds, Briggs blowing the pea in 
his whistle crazy.” We came in at 2.30 with a credit- 
able bag for three parties of 129J brace. I analyse the 
birds, 1 1| of old cocks, 2 1| old hens, 96J young birds. 
In spite of bad weather this was a good season. I see 
on a fine day, the i6th, the bag was 254 J brace. 
“ Grouse plentiful, but very wild.” I killed, exclusive 
of partnerships, 5 1 brace to my gun. There were three 
parties, two guns each — each party getting over 80 
brace. On one day I give examples of the mixture of 
Durham, Northumbrian and Scotch language by which 
we and the dogs were entertained : 

Natrass (Durham keeper) to setter bitch, “ Heg on, 
heg on, thoo bit o’ roobish ! ” Briggs, addressing a 
pointer, “ Dod burn ye, yer horrud little hottie ! ” and 
Lundie, addressing ghillie boy, “ Keep awa, mon, frae 
the groond we ha’ na tocht ; besides ye micht get 
yerrself shot, wuch wad be anither on us again ! ” 

By September loth we had shot 2342I brace of 
grouse and 134 blue hares, and other extras. In 
October we had seven more days’ driving and got 
another 700 brace, but had a nasty accident. One of 
our visitors fired down the line and shot my uncle 
(John William Pease). When I got to him he was hit 
in the face and bleeding from both eyes — one was 
eventually saved. 

One of my cousins, George Croker Fox, who was 



WALES AND ELSEWHERE 


67 

shooting that day, had lost an eye. Years after my 
brother got shot in the eye, but it was saved. I have 
had my spectacles smashed and eyelid cut by shot, 
and I have known others who lost eyes through the 
carelessness of experienced shooting men. Fawcett, the 
blind Postmaster-General, whom I knew, was struck 
by two pellets only, one in the centre of each eye. My 
uncle, who was always the life of our shooting parties 
and a very good shot, never shot again. The Queen 
came from Balmoral to inquire personally about him. 

This was a good partridge year, too, at home, though 
it is not a partridge country. We considered a good 
day over dogs anything over 20 brace ; and I have 
noted this season such bags as : “ September 27th, at 
Waupley, Robert and George Yeoman, Freddy 
Lambton and I got 41 brace by 5 p.m.” 

My first day cub-hunting was on September 24th. 

On the opening day (November ist) we had a very 
good run, and ran our fox to ground at Lazenby 
village late in the afternoon, and the sequel delighted 
me. The Master (Proud) was determined to have him, 
so they put the hounds in a barn hard by “ and dug for 
four hours by lanterns.” They got her out — ^for it 
turned out to be a vixen — ^put her in a poke, let out the 
hounds and shook her out in the middle with the 
village population around. She gave one or two leaps 
over the hounds and bolted through a fence, while the 
hounds were bothered with the foot-people. Proud 
and Will had their horses to fetch from the stables, and 
long before they got going in the dark the fox was 
miles away, and hounds could be heard running to- 
wards the coast. She beat them, and John Proud and 
Will had a nice night of it getting hounds in the dark — 



68 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

and serve them right I It was 8 p.m. when they shook 
her out of the bag ! I end my account, “ hounds 
were called off, and so she escaped, bless her.” 

On November 2oth I gave up going to the Hur- 
worth at High Leven, and regretted it, for they ran a 
fox right into the middle of our country from Stainsby 
Wood, by Upsall, Eston Moor, and lost near Dunsdale, 
about a ten-mile point. 

I give an account on November 20th of two matches 
ridden on Croft Racecourse, between Jimmie Dale 
(the present Sir Jas. B. Dale, Bt.) and Bob Colling, 
which ended in the total discomfiture of the former — 
for in the first race Bob Colling rode a cob and Jimmie 
a four-year-old green hunter, which at the outset gave 
a buck and landed Jimmie on his back. In the second, 
Jimmie’s pony had its head licked off by Bob’s. . . . 
“ He has already received a packet of shoemaker’s wax 
with directions as to how and where it should be 
applied.” 

How strange our provincial ways would appear to 
the fashionable hunting people in the crack countries 1 
I mention on one good day, “ Johnny Fetch and I 
composed the field.” I have described a hard day with 
my brother’s beagles at Commondale, from 10 a.m. till 
dark, he and I on foot and one other out mounted. 
We ran the hare about eight times round the farm until 
we were giddy, and she beat us, night coming on. If 
I had been Jack I should have taken them round the 
other way and met her ! 

Or imagine a thing like this, on December 13th, 
with the Quorn, Pytchley or Cottesmore : “ Stanley 
Houses to Newton in fourteen minutes. Jack and I 
there when they ran into him, Jock Clarke close 



WALES AND ELSEWHERE 69 

behind, some big fences and the Nunthorpe Stell. 
I gave Miss Sydney the brush, and Jack gave Gurney 
Fox the head.” 

As the Welsh hound Malster outran our pack and 
Proud would not have him, I sent the hound to the 
Bilsdale, where he distinguished himself for several 
seasons and was in his element. Many a time his big 
voice first proclaimed a fox is found. A day at Liver- 
ton I think sealed Malster’s fate with the Cleveland. 
We met at old Mr. Thomas Fetch’s house, and while 
waiting there Malster slunk away and demolished a 
whole Yorkshire ham. In a fast run soon after, to my 
amazement Malster was one hundred yards behind the 
tail end, and loudly deploring his inability to get to the 
top of the hunt. I looked at him and saw his strangely 
distended condition. The theft and the terrible music 
all day as he lamented his cargo was the finishing touch 
to his short career with us. I had a letter from Nicholas 
Spink, M.F.H., on December 31st, 1883, acknow- 
ledging the receipt of Malster and a cheque for one 
guinea, in which he said ; “ We will breed you a pup 
of our old best breed ; three hundred and sixty years. 
It is the oldest breed in Yorkshire.” 



Chapter X 


PEOPLE AND PLACES, 1884 

I N the season of 1883 I had a very fine Irish hunter 
which my father turned over to me, being more than 
he could manage on occasion, and on January 14th I 
had an experience which is still a nightmare to me. 
Hounds were in the road at Marske Hall, when Wick- 
low started rearing and plunging. He then bolted, 
went bang through the hounds and “ field,” and did a 
mile and a half on the highroad at Derby pace. I got 
him stopped beyond Kirkleatham and turned him 
round, when, after a plunge or two, he again bolted all 
the way back and went a second time through every- 
thing, including the hounds. By a miracle not a hound 
was hurt, but my feelings were badly, and I sold him 
to James Darrell, who cured him. He was Holland’s, 
the Bedale huntsman, favourite mount for several 
seasons. 

On January 17th Thomas Metcalfe died. He and 
another old gamekeeper of Lord Zetland’s called 
Wright had been deliberately shot by two poachers at 
close range. One of the latter, James Lowther, was 
apprehended, and we committed him for trial at the 
assizes. He was sentenced to death, but Lord Zetland 
secured his reprieve. I believe he died in penal servi- 
tude sqjne fourt^n years after. It is a curious thing 



PEOPLE AND PLACES 


71 

that Lowther’s father murdered a gamekeeper. Met- 
calfe, the other keeper, was terribly wounded ; he 
recovered, but was a maimed man. * 

The same day that Metcalfe died I note that Tom 
Farrington hunted with us. He rode well in a “ brilliant 
burst,” and I think this would be his very last day’s 
hunting with the Cleveland, but he lived on, hunting 
with the Sinnington, latterly on wheels, until 1915, in 
which year he died, aged ninety-seven, having seen the 
first fox killed on his father’s farm where Middles- 
brough now stands in i Saj’ and having followed hounds 
for about ninety years. He wrote to me on March ist, 
1915, within a month of his death, sending me “ warm 
thanks for remembering ” his silver wedding day (his 
second marriage). “ We had a few friends in to dinner 
on Saturday night and drank the usual toasts, ‘ The 
King,’ ‘ Foxhunting,’ and ‘ All Absent Friends,’ and 
they made me sing two hunting songs which they said 
were quite up to the old form. ... I have been at 
several meets of the hounds on wheels. . . .” 

When he was ninety-three Mr. Farrington lunched 
with me one day, drank three glasses of sherry at lunch, 
and the whole of a bottle of 1844 port except one glass, 
which I drank. He told me that it had been “ his rule 
in life ” to drink daily one bottle of port after dinner. 
It seems to have answered 1 This is the man who first 
started hound shows, prizes for thoroughbred stallions, 
practically created the Yorkshire Agricultural Society, 
and rendered great services to the agricultural com- 
munity. He had been an M.F.H., but as I wrote a 
memoir of him I need say no more about him here. 

On January 24th, 1884, meet at Lazenby, we ran 
all day — 10.50 till night set in. I give the accounts of 



72 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

six runs this day, one a “ screamer.” We killed two 
foxes, ran two to ground, and lost two, “ a very hard 
tiring day for horses,” as five hours’ galloping was 
likely to make it. 

On February ist I got to the end of a very severe run 
with the Bilsdale. For the benefit of Cleveland hunting 
people I give the line. Found above Blackbeck, Bays- 
dale, Ingleby Park, Kildale Moor, Little Kildale, West 
House, Piggeries, Percy Cross, Sleddale, Bethel Slack, 
Cass Rock, Slapewath, Wiley, Skelton Warren, where 
we lost him — over more than fifteen miles. 

This February I had a curious accident. I bought a 
very nice Irish mare, four years old, by Baldwin, at 
Tattersalls for forty-nine guineas, described as a “ good ” 
hunter,” and the groom with her (there were three 
other Irish hunters in the same lot) assured me she was 
a fine performer. I took her out to a meet about a mile 
from my house, and she went as if she had never been 
ridden or mouthed at all. 

I got her to the meet and to the covert side, but to 
my astonishment as soon as hounds went into covert off 
she went too. It was a big fir wood, and seeing much 
danger ahead I used every device to stop her, but even 
when I pulled her head round with her mouth to my 
knee she raced on. It did not take long before she ran 
head-first into a tree trunk, felled herself, and lay as if 
dead. My hunting cap brim saved my skull, but I dis- 
located my jaw, had my face cut, and had a rather nasty 
fortnight of it after, and months of discomfort in eating. 

I found that the mare had never even been mouthed, 
and that her dock was still raw. I sold her at once to 
James Darrell for eighty pounds, and Ae made her into 
a good hunter and sold her well. It was a singular 



PEOPLE AND PLACES 


73 

experience, and gave me a lesson as to “ good hunters ” 
in catalogues and Irish impudence. 

When I recovered from this accident save for a stiff 
jaw I had some excellent days TS’ith different packs on a 
horse James Darrell sent me. He was thoroughbred, 
by Keith (by Blair Athol). One day when the Bedale 
met at Scorton, w'e had a good run from Uckerby Whin 
of forty minutes, and another of fifty minutes “ over 
a stiff trappy country.” Nearly all who saw this run got 
“ downers.” 

Teesdale Hutchinson — one of our great men in 
Yorkshire then, and who died at a great age in 1 929 (?) 
— broke some ribs ; my friend “ Charlie Cropper got 
a cropper and tore an ear ; in fact nearly had it cropped 
off.” (He died from a fall out hunting on the 6th 
October, 1924, aged seventy-two.) 

My brother Jack and I were in it. I had enough 
“ having lived on slops for a long time and having no 
breakfast ” on account of my jaw, and “ went groaning 
to bed,” but ate on the next day for the first time for 
weeks. 

The following day when staying with my now one- 
eyed uncle, the Bishop of Newcastle told us he was 
travelling third class to see something of all classes in 
the new diocese, and was wearing a blue ribbon (at that 
time the advertisement worn by teetotalers). A pitman 
took the seat opposite him and after a long contem- 
plation of his lordship and his attire said : “ Ah 
suppose y’ere a corrate ? ” “ No,” said the Bishop. 

“ A pweest likely ? ” “ Yes,” said the Bishop. “ Meb- 
by ye’ll be a wector (rector) ? ” further inquired the 
pitman. “ No, but I was one once.” “ Oo,” exclaimed 
the pitman with a look of pity and as if he quite under- 



74 half a century of sport 

• 6tood the situation and the reason for a blue ribbon, 
“ It’ll ha’ been the dwink ne doot ! ” 

In the month of March I mention having the first fall 
I ever had when riding a mare called “ Queen Mab,” 
who had carried me since 1879. It was a wonderful 
record, and I think I may put her down not as the most 
brilliant or fastest by any means, but as the most clever 
and resourceful animal I ever rode. I have known her 
climb rails too high to jump. She found a way over or 
through everything, and you were never pounded. 
This day I put her at a high stiff gate and she never 
rose at all, but tumbled over the top of it without doing 
any harm to me, the gate or herself. This is the worst 
of gates, for an accomplished hunter, unless you give 
the proper signal at the right moment, may think it 
will open. 

Here is a curious incident recorded : “ Mr. Harrison 
at Lealholm was ferreting rabbits the other day, put 
in the ferret at a big rabbit hole and out bolted a sheep- 
dog followed by six pups ! ” 

Just as the season ended we heard of the death in 
London of the former Master of the Cleveland, Henry 
Newcomen of Kirkleatham Hall. I felt the loss of a 
friend and a very kind neighbour. He was a genial, 
open-handed, generous sportsman, and had been re- 
trenching in Jersey for a year or two and was about to 
return home. I think the Turf had been a bit too much, 
for his pocket ; yet he owned one or two good horses 
— one was Thunderer. 

Arthur Lawley (now Lord Wenlock), better known 
to his friends as “ Joe ” Lawley, came to stay with me 
in May — ^we had been at Cambridge together and he 
had just returned from the Egyptian campaign with his 



PEOPLE AND PLACES 75 

regiment, the loth Hussars. He had been at the Battle 
of El Teb and in the charge which saved the square. 
He enjoyed the fighting, but when I asked news of ray 
friend Paulton, who was inside the square as a war 
correspondent, he said “ he did not enjoy it much as 
he had neither breakfast nor lunch and had his horse 
shot under him,” 

“ Joe ” Lawley, under whom I served many years 
later when he was Governor of the Transvaal, was a 
fine horseman, like his brothers, and a bad one to beat 
across a country at this time. 

Another Cambridge friend of mine performed a feat 
this year. Sir John Willoughby’s Harvester ran a dead- 
heat with St. Gatien his mare Queen Adelaide was 
third in the Derby and the last named took the same 
place in the Oaks (Baird’s Busybody first, and Superba^ 
second). These were extremely well bred. Harvester, 
by Sterling out of Wheatear (1867), and Queen Ade- 
laide, by Hermit out of Adelaide. 

On June 4th I dined at the Mansion House in the 
City at the dinner given to the Beaufort Hunt. It was 
interesting to see the great variety of Hunt uniforms. 
Lord Cork, as Master of the Buckhounds, the Duke 
and Duchess of Beaufort and Lord Worcester, Lord 
and Lady Lonsdale, Lord and Lady Bathtxrst, Lord and 
Lady Waterford, and a host of others were present. 

On Monday, October 20th, 1884, I went to the 
meet, but hounds did not come, for Admiral Thomas 
Chaloner had died. He was born in 1 8 1 5 — an old sea- 
dog, chairman of the Hunt committee, a staunch pre- 
server of foxes, though not much of a hunting or 
shooting man. He was an admirable chairman of our 

^ Tills mare ran third in the St. Lcger. 



76 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

bench, but though I served a four years’ apprenticeship 
under him as a J.P., had I learnt to use his language — 
which was of the quarter-deck variety — or had I done 
the audacious things he did in his ardent pursuit of 
justice without reference to the statute book, I fear a 
modern Lord Chancellor would long since have re- 
moved my name from the Commission of the Peace ! 

His moral exhortation to a “ drunk and disorderly ” 
would be in this fashion : “ Come now, my man! 
What the devil is the use of this ? We don’t want 
your money — ^you work hard for it — ^find some- 

thing better to do with it. Damn it all, give it up — 
you’ll be fined five shillings I Stand down, and don’t 
come here again.” 

When dying, the doctor had sat with him forty 
nights, and at last took a night off, but had not been an 
hour in bed before he was summoned to the Admiral’s 
bedside, and addressed thus : “ What do you mean, 
sir, by leaving my bedside ? When I was on board ship 
I had two surgeons always with me, and do ye think 
I’m going to die without one by my bed ? ” He sent 
for his gamekeeper Sanderson to say good-bye to him, 
and said : “ Sanderson, these nurses plague me. I 
wish you would take ’em all out and shoot ’em.” There 
is a cross and anchor on his grave. He said : “ I don’t 
want a great slab on it to keep me down'’ 



Chapter XI 


MORE ABOUT 1884 

I NOTE on November 26th (1884), that the leading 
hounds in a run with the South Durham went head- 
long down an old pitshaft at Heughhall and were lost, 
i.e. killed or drowned with the fox. The following 
day in a fast run over the moors I came to grief in a 
curious way. It was remarkable in the first place, 
because it happened on our own moor, where though 
I knew every yard of the ground I had a moment of 
mental aberration. I was thinking of nothing but 
keeping with the hounds, and was going top pace in 
deep heather, oblivious to anything else, when I had 
the idea that a sort of line in the ling was a sheep track ; 
so I galloped into it. It was the deep narrow cutting 
of a boundary stream hid under the heather some six 
feet deep. Down we went, and when I picked myself 
up I found my horse tightly wedged between the banks. 
I had hurt my shoulder, ankle and neck, for the fall 
was a rough one. 

The situation looked bad, but luckily for me on the 
lonely moor two of the field came in sight and gave up 
their gallop to find out what had become of my horse. 
Like good Samaritans, T. Ward and W. Scarth Dixon, 
when they saw the problem, gave up the whole after- 
noon to its solution. One rode to the nearest farm in 
Loundsdale for spades, and before dark we had dug 



yS HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

away enough side to pull Barebones out with our 
united stirrup leathers. I rode him home and was only 
a few days laid up. 

This December I had a horse on trial from James 
Darrell, by Golden Horn out of an Arabian mare. He 
was the hottest and fiercest horse I had ever ridden, 
very fast and a fine fencer. I rode him in some very 
good runs, but sent him back, for like one or two bred 
the same way I have had, he got hotter and crazier the 
longer he was going. I do not know what others have 
found, but my experience of this cross is that it is a 
very hot one, and the docility of the Arabian seems to 
vanish and the fire to be doubled. But you cannot get 
a braver and harder sort, I think. 

My father and I had a curious case of being black- 
mailed this month. My father received a solicitor’s 
letter saying he had shot and hit a farmer’s wife, who 
was standing in the doorway of the farmhouse, which 
was situated on the far side of a railway, when we were 
shooting in a field opposite the house. I was the only 
one who fired a shot at all, and I had fired at a high 
partridge in the direction of the house, which was at 
least two hundred yards distant. Probably some 
dropping shot may have fallen near her, but to show 
how near she had been to death the stonework round 
the door had been chipped ! Shot at fifty yards would 
not take pieces of stone out. 

However, rather than be bothered with a “ case,” 
and saying you never know what lies will be believed 
by ignorant people, my father gave the farmer fifteen 
pounds to drop it 1 I do not think he ought to have 
done this, for even a judge entirely ignorant could have 
had it demonstrated that if you fire a shot at a partridge 



ABOUT 1884 79 

flying high over a railway embankment, you could not 
hit anyone two hundred yards beyond. But I knew 
him pay over one hundred pounds in another case, 
where a trespasser who was playing with an alarm gun 
let the blank cartridge slide down the rod and got his 
face touched up. For, said my father, they will say 
these signal guns are set to kill people, and are man 
traps, and Heaven knows if there are not judges who 
would believe such yarns. 

This December I went to several other countries, 
and on the 20th I hunted with the Duke of Beaufort’s 
at Holt, It had been a windy night, and the oldest 
and most enormous elm tree in Wiltshire, the pride of 
the village green for generations was blown down, 
utterly destroying one house in its fall . . . but it was 
lucky for the owner, who was a poor man, that it hap- 
pened the day the hounds met there.’ Walter Long, 
M.P. (afterwards Viscount Long), who in my opinion 
was the best man to hounds in that hunt, went round 
with the hat and collected a substantial sum for him. 

We had a good day with foxes from Charfield and 
Sir Robert Fowler’s gorse, but I seem to have been in a 
critical mood from the following remarks ; “ I believe 
in gentlemen huntsmen, but they should be V3ith 
hounds. No huntsman is perfection who is not by 
them when they are at fault. It is in the first moment 
of a check that you often see a shy or young hound own 
the line for a second and then give up, but this is 
enough to give you the key to a cast. Worcester does 
not pose as a ‘ crasher.’ 

“ I think he is a very useful huntsman, considering 
his weight, and a hard man in the sense that he works 
hard and hunts his own hounds nine or ten days a 



8o HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

fortnight, and understands his job. He has a splendid 
pack of good-looking, quick-working bitches, a ripping 
country, and likely for carrying a scent ; but looking 
over the field, I thought its members were mounted on 
a class of heavy, thick-set, bloodless hunters such as 
must preclude the owners for the most part from seeing 
anything of a good thing. A great proportion took 
only a moderate interest in the proceedings and rode 
after each other. 

“ Some remind me of my Aunt Gurney Pease’s 
coachman. Hopper, who goes out on her hunters just 
following horses, and who the other day went out with 
the Zetland and finished with the Hurworth and never 
noticed the difference of hounds, huntsmen, field, 
uniforms, country nor anything else.” I knew another 
who hunted to ride across country hell for leather, and 
who did this, too, on one occasion. He hunted three 
or four days a week with these packs whenever he had 
not broken limbs or a fractured skull (Edward R. 
Whitwell, of Yarm). 

“ The Beaufort field is ‘ well turned out.’ You may 
see some of England’s best among them.” I used to 
see Whyte Melville and was in Wiltshire when he was 
killed. He was a more distinguished author than 
rider, but he was not well mounted when I saw him. 

On December 24th I hunted at Foss Lodge with 
their dog pack, “ a grand lot,” and had a good run 
from Badminton and killed at Doddington, but the 
earlier part of this day I describe as “ lamentable.” 
“We hunted two or three foxes at one time.” 

At this time my father was staying at Eggesford with 
Lord Portsmouth (the fifth earl, born 1825, died 1891), 
and I find in my diary a long letter from him describing 



ABOUT 1884 81 

several days’ hunting, some extracts from which may 
be interesting, as they relate to a time when this pack 
was a noted one, owdng to the pains Lord Portsmouth 
had taken to make them all he wanted. His son, when 
he succeeded, gave them up. 

My father says : “I rode a short-legged, active 
horse which is the sort they go in for here. ... I 
never saw a better-looking pack ; short, thick, hard- 
looking hounds, great loins and upstanding heads. . . . 
I quite wondered how any horse could negotiate this 
country, with its great wailed banks (wdth fences on 
the top often), and was soon relieved to find no one 
attempted it. The lanes are numerous and field roads 
frequent. 

“ We drove our fox along at a great pace, and all 
along a wall (bank r), for I should think two miles ” 
(and he describes two runs). “ The field was much like 
a Cleveland one, with a few red coats and black collars, 
and the rest farmers. . . . 

“ There was a nice little lady at dinner, Lady Audrey 
Bullet ; her husband is at Wady Haifa (Redvers Buller, 
then Major-General and Chief-of-Staf^.” . . . 

After detailing another day’s hunting ... he then 
describes the kennel floors : “ Best red tiles laid in 
cement, and this laid on clay to keep out rheumatism. 
. . . Does not this seem strange ? ” . . . All the 
hunters are of one sort, about fifteen hands high, and 
a credit to the stud groom (Percival). The huntsman’s 
name is funny — Littleworth 1 but he seems to know 
his business. . . . There was no jumping either of 
these two days.” 

He then goes on to say that when they have to jump 
an awkward bank they get qff^ and the horse jumps up, 

D* 



$2 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

slides down, and jumps a ditch, and he is astonished 
to see how well his own mount knew his duty. “ He 
went as keenly as if I had been on his back.” 

“ . . . Lord Portsmouth offers you for the Cleve- 
land a stud hound, Richmond ; he has all the best 
blood of England in him, is not a show hound, but the 
hardest working one he ever saw, and with the very 
best nose, and will take a line when all else are done. 
He has used him — is a nasty tempered dog,” and he 
appends pedigree, etc. 

I finished the year’s hunting on December 29th with 
the Cleveland. The meet was at Guisbrough, and a 
fox from Swindles (the modern name for Swinedale) gave 
us a great run into the Loftus country and straight back 
again (about fourteen miles), being lost mysteriously. 
We had another run of one hour and twenty minutes 
and killed. This I refer to in the next chapter. 



Chapter XII 


GOOD DAYS AND GOOD RIDERS, 1885 

I N my description of the fourteen-mile run^ with the 
Cleveland on the morning of December 29th, 1 884, 
I seem to have begun full of triumphant pride, but got 
sobered and brought back to a less glorious position 
by sundry misfortunes. As a sample of my entries in 
the heyday of youth I here describe it. 

“ It was a cool winter morning and a cloudy sky and 
with what is much better in our country than a southerly 
vrind — an easterly one. Someone said as we trotted 
off to draw Swindles, ‘ Too cold for sport ’ ‘ No,’ 

said I, ‘ they’ll run like blazes to-day.’ 

“ I was on my little black fidgety Barebones (by 
Victor, dam by Lothario and grandam by Irish Bird- 
catcher — ^good stuff that !), and had galloped on to the 
Freeborough end of the long covert (as we only had one 
whip in those days). I had just got him to stand still 
for a second when a faint note or two of music, half lost 
in the wind, came to us. At this he pricked his ears, 
was all attention and motionless as death. A few notes 
— ^then silence, then a few more and more and Reynard, 
a quarter of a mile ahead of hounds, popped out past 
us and over the fields in a fine gallop. In a few moments 
the pack broke into full chorus, the telling cry of a 

1 The morning’s run is that referred to by Sir Alfred Pease at the cad of his last 
article, and not the last run mentioned- 



84 half a century of sport 

burning scent as they breasted the hill towards us. 
They dashed into the open and quickly settled to the 
line with joyful voice. In half a crack I was with them 
and gave the ‘ Gone Away ’ to the field half a mile 
behind. 

“ Hounds raced to the Moorsholm Road ; no time 
for gates. Over the wall Barebones went, taking the 
coping off — ^he in his glory going his own pace. From 
racing they flew, and we flying too over fences and 
crashing through others, for only a fast blood one on a 
straight line could live with them.” 

However, Waupley Gill tamed me, and some five of 
us had to get to Liverton four or five fields behind the 
hounds. On the Grinkle side we ran to ground in a 
drain, and had a breather, then put in Johnny Fetch’s 
Pepper, and out went our fox in a few minutes, very 
fresh. We gave three minutes’ law, and then brought 
up hounds and back we went over seven miles of open 
country as fast as we could leg it. 

I mention “ Will ” (Nichol, the huntsman), “ Ben ” 
(the whip), “ Leather Robinson,” on his old grey, 
Johnny Fetch and myself as having the best of this 
second half of the programme. This was a really grand 
fox, and “ went out and home again ” splendidly and 
saved his brush as the bravest often do. 

I find the reprehensible practice of occasionally hunt- 
ing a “ baggie ” continued as late as 1885 with the 
Cleveland. It is true that these foxes were generally 
saved from known vulpecides in the outlying moor- 
lands, or got out of such places as Boulby Cliff (six 
hundred feet sheer down to the sea), which we were 
rather afraid of drawing, for on these dangerous coast 
cliffs we had lost some valuable hounds at various times. 



GOOD DAYS AND RIDERS 85 

And I will say for John Proud, our Master, that he gave 
“ good law,” and many of them beat us. 

I give the following day, January 8th, 1885, as an 
illustration of the practice, and also as a sample of the 
great distances we rode in those years. 

“ My brother-in-law Tom (the late Captain Sir 
Thomas Fowler, killed in action in 1902) and I started 
before it was light to hunt with the Farndale at Wester- 
dale (nine miles) at 9 a.m. They did not turn up, so 
we rode on to the Cleveland at Castleton (two miles). 
“ It was fearfully wet, windy, sleeting, and bitterly 
cold — drew Castleton Park blank. They had, however, 
a fox got out of Fryup Head, and set him away on the 
moor above the park. We gave him tweny minutes’ 
law and they ran him well to Lockwood Beck and 
nearly to Slapewath into Wiley Cat (five miles), messed 
on for an hour and lost him. 

“ Proud asked me (it was stormy and cold) what was 
to be done } I said, ‘ Have a go at something.’ We 
drew Coum Bank and all round Forty Pence blank 
back to Slapewath. We thought it was all over, and 
only four of us left, when a fox went out of the Rock 
Hole. We ran down Waterfall, then across the open 
to Guisbrough Banks, over the moor to Wiley Cat, 
across the valley to Skelton Warren, across the Boos- 
beck Valley to Coum Bank and on to Priestcroft, and 
lost near North Skelton. 

“ We were now only three and nearly dead with cold, 
and were making for home, when we passed old David 
Petch’s place. He came out with hot gin and water, 
and, fortified thus, we were going on to Skelton when a 
man gave a ‘ holloa.’ It was dusk, but John Proud 
had now a spur in the head, and we laid hounds on. 



86 


HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


They raced by Skelton Green to ground near the Castle 
Lodge, where we spent about two hours digging under 
the highway, and then gave it up at 6.30, after eleven 
hours of it on one of the coldest days I was ever out — 
an east wind.” 

We had a great day on January 19th, hounds racing 
one fox to ground over a great deal of country, and 
another splendid fast hunting run. I say, “ My father 
was pretty handy most of the run, as also was Tom 
Fowler. Those who rode hardest and nearest were 
Johnny Fetch, Alfred Pennyman (who lost his hat), a 
son of Enoch (Lord Zetland’s trainer) and two or three 
more.” 

On the 22 nd we had another hard day, but I shall 
only give my remarks on hounds in case they interest 
those who follow the careers of descendants. “ This 
day there was some of the finest hound work I ever 
saw, old Merryman, Streamlet, Novelty, Gamester and 
Windymere working out every turn and double. We 
lost at dark at Cargo Fleet.” Merryman, a Cleveland 
bred hound, was perhaps the best we had at this time. 

My journals are full of allusions to the Egyptian 
Campaign, dynamite outrages and politics. Here is 
one allusion to the war : 

, “ Fri. 23 January. — The news of yesterday’s victory 
at Abu Klea is a great relief to everyone.” (I then give 
a list of killed and wounded. It includes among the 
killed : Colonel Burnaby, Royal Horse Guards ; 
Major Carmichael, 5th Lancers ; Major Atherton, 5th 
Dragoon Guards ; Major Gough of “ the Heavies,” 
and others.) Burnaby’s death is the most commented 
on,^ but Atherton’s affects me more, for when his 
regiment was at York he hunted regularly with the 



GOOD DAYS AND RIDERS 87 

Zetland and was the hardest rider to hounds, I think, 
I ever saw (he was one of those who rode absolutely and 
resolutely straight).” 

I once was riding level with him on his left at the 
front in a very fast burst, when we came to an enormous 
double post and rails (with a young fence between 
them), brand new, quite unbreakable and unjumpable. 
I saw he was going to have them, as he never swerved 
from the line. I turned off over an old gate into a lane, 
and when I got to hounds again I had lost my place, 
but looking back for Atherton I saw his horse between 
the rails, Atherton unable to get him out and the timber 
quite unbreakable — nothing but saws and axes could 
free the horse. 

I owned at this time a beautiful-looking black stallion 
called Comus, by Pero Gomez out of Hilarity, by King 
Tom. Like King Tom’s dam Pocahontas he was a 
whistler, but I was induced to travel him. It was a 
lesson to me, for almost half of his stock were unsound 
in their wind at three or four years old. I only 
travelled him one season, and sold him in i88j^,’being 
frightened of what might, and did, result. It Was a 
lesson I never forgot. 

Here is an extract which has nothing to do with, 
sport, but which may as well be entered as a rather neat 
impromptu : 

“ Hartington, at the opening dinner of the new 
Devonshire Club to Gladstone, who sat between my 
father and Earl Cork, threw across the table to my 
father the following impromptu verse : 

**‘Tiiis dinner is given Mr. Gladstone to please 
In eating and drinking and talk. 

On the left he^s employ’d in devouring Pease, 

On the right he has drawn out the Cork.’” 



88 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

I fancy the author was Sir Wilfred Lawson. 

This season was a remarkable one for sport, and I 
record many good runs with the Cleveland, Hurworth 
and Zetland hounds. On February 26th we met at 
Thornton, and had a racing run over six miles of coun- 
try, when hounds suddenly threw up their heads at a 
level railway crossing and cottage at Nunthorpe, and 
never touched the line again. It was at the time very 
unaccountable, but the next morning I got word that 
the old couple who lived in the cottage had been dis- 
turbed in the night, the old woman waking her husband 
saying she was sure the “ cat ” was under the bed. 
When he got up and lit a candle — there was our fox ! 
I sent over for it, and it was a very large dark grey and 
red vixen with an almost black brush and large white 
tip — I never saw a prettier one — and we turned her 
loose in the east country. 

On March 5th we had the run of the season, a 
wonderful one, for hounds ran for two hours and eight 
minutes “ without ever being touched.” I have all the 
details, but I give, in order to retain a record, the 
principal points : 

Found on the north side of Upleatham Hill, ran to 
the south side Upleatham Village, Soapwell Tocketts 
Tile Works, Tocketts Lythe, Long Hull, Foxdale, 
Guisbrough Banks, Bethel Slack, Tidkinhowe, Aysdale 
Gate, Lockwood Beck, Stanghow, Moorsholm Gill, 
down to Goatscar, over to Kilton, Claphow, hard to 
Merry Lockwood’s Gill, Lumpsey, raced down Salt- 
burn Gill and to ground in the main breed earth at the 
sea end of the valley. “ Horses were thoroughly done,” 
“ Wind in the East.” Among those who were in this 
run I mention my cousin, that excellent sportsman the 



GOOD DAYS AND RIDERS 89 

present Master of the Puckeridge, Mr. Edward E. 
Barclay. 

On March 9th we killed an extraordinarily light- 
coloured silver-grey fox after a good run of three hours 
at Hutton Home Farm, and, it being Squire Wharton’s, 
of Skelton Castle, seventy-sixth birthday, and he up at 
the finish, he was presented with the brush and head. 
His son, Colonel Wharton, the present M.F.H., still 
shows these trophies in a glass case at the Castle. 

The latter, “ The Young Squire ” at this time, was 
Master of the Hurworth, and had his hunters at Croft 
with rooms for himself and friends at the hotel there. 
Croft, when I was young, was a fashionable hunting 
centre for the Hurworth, Zetland and Bedale. 

Forbes, the Master of the Hurworth, I remember at 
one meet when representatives from various Hunts 
were there, rode round and looked us over with his nose 
in the air without saying a word till his inspection was 
over, and then exclaimed : “ Bedale, Cleveland, Zet- 
land, South Durham — everybody worth tuppence is 
here ! ” 

Now everybody almost “ worth tuppence ” sticks 
mostly to his own country, which does not do as much 
for enlivening a day as the old hospitable ways. We 
never dreamed in those days of the inhospitable modern 
system when you are made to pay on appearing in 
another country than your own. All good sportsmen 
were welcome, wherever they came from. 



Chapter XIII 


SPORT ON LAND AND SEA IN 1885 AND 1886 

I SPENT a day in Wharton’s Kennels at Croft on 
March I rth, 1885, and say of the Hurworth pack : 
“ He has some grand strong old hounds, such as 
Bachelor, Bertram (by Bramham Marquis), Cromwell 
(by Belvoir Dandy) and Barbara, but some very light 
of bone and more like harriers. He has, however, some 
grand ones to enter ; one or two by a black-and-white 
hound, old (eight-season) Gallant (by Cradock’s 
Ranger), which hound seems to me to be faultless.” 
This extract may interest those who have watched 
Colonel Wharton’s eventual success as a breeder and 
improver of foxhounds. 

Here is a hard day. First we had my brother’s 
beagles out and hunted hare at Sleddale, getting home 
at 9.30 to breakfast. Then out hunting, at Guisbrough 
Park, 10.30 ; had a three hours and fifty minutes’ run 
■from there to Tocketts, Dunsdale Bridge,' Holbeck, 
Guisbrough Abbey, Cass Rock, Codhill, Sleddale, 
Percy Cross, Lounsdale, Court Moor, Kildale, Little 
Kildale Moor, Battersby Banks, up Kildale to West 
House, Piggery Rigg, Tidkinhow, Nor Ings, Common- 
dale, Skelderskew, over the moor towards Stanghow, 
“ the last hour slow,” where we lost. 

On Monday, March i6th, hounds, in a run, went 
straight for Huntcliffe. We made a desperate effort to 



LAND AND SEA, 1885 AND 1886 9I 

Stop them, and succeeded, but not before a couple had 
gone over and been killed. 

“ Ted Barclay ” (E. E. B., who had been with me 
for a few weeks), Jack (my brother), and I, plotted to 
have some fun with our beagles on March 14th, for the 
day before when our keepers were rabbiting they had 
dug out a great big hill dog fox. We sent the keeper 
(Briggs) on with the fox to Freeborough Hill where he 
was sent away on the moor. 

We three were all well mounted but got delayed by a 
wire sheep fence, and the little hounds went screaming 
away with a chorus like a thousand rooks getting up 
out of a potato field — and we never caught them. We 
spent a spring afternoon trying to find them, heard 
news of them at Castleton, and ultimately collected 
most of them near Danby Beacon — one hound came 
back to my brother at White Cross with blood on it ; 
subsequently my brother had a letter from a Danby 
man, who had seen the fox pulled down near Danby 
and had taken the brush. 

I see on more than one day this season I rode “ my 
two-year-old Cabajean ” (by Shiboleth out of a Cleve- 
land mare) — a beautiful mare, which I sold at three 
years old to the Duke of Hamilton for 1 3 1 . I men- , 
tion this as few ever ride two-year-olds to hounds now, 
yet one or two of the cleverest horses I ever had were 
“ made ” before they were three years old, and if great 
care is taken never to give them too much I have an 
idea that these are often the best educated hunters. I 
have known Irish hunters that were perfect which had 
been hunted at two years old. 

At the end of March I had a day or two with Lord 
Portsmouth, staying at Eggesford. He gave me some 



HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


92 

of his draft, and Will Nichol, our huntsman, came down 
with me and took back six-and-a-half couples (I give a 
list of them). I say of his hounds “ a grand level lot, 
heavy boned, hard-looking and with nice shoulders, not 
heavy as heavy hounds shoulders are apt to be, and on 
short good legs.” After seeing them hunt I say, “ they 
work splendidly ; I never heard a better cry, they can 
hunt and drive.” I thought little of the hunt horses, 
“ a moderate underbred-looking lot with straight 
shoulders.” 

Of his lordship I say, “ he is devoted to hounds and 
withal a jolly squire and good all-round sportsman,” 
but his talk, worth hearing, about hounds, is “ slow, 
halting hem-hemming and ‘ don’t ye know,’ ‘ I mean ’ 
and ‘ you understand what I mean ’ and difficult to 
follow.” 

I complain on a very wet day of his lordship being 
well wrapt up walking his horse all the way home 
“ while I was very cold and wet.” My practice has 
been always to come home fast, as fast as my horse likes 
to take me. To trail slowly home is as depressing and 
tiring for a horse as for a rider, and to bring a horse in 
happy means he gets his food sooner and when he is 
ready for it. 

Lord Portsmouth began to keep hounds about 1854 
in Hampshire when he took the Vine. They were a 
mixed lot and were soon replaced with the hounds 
Mr. Villebois had hunted the Vale of White Horse 
with. They were, I believe, very big hounds, but he 
pruned them down by heavy drafting after the first 
season and in 1856 bought the Craven from Mr. Best. 

The two best of the Craven were said to be Sailor, 
bred by Lord Southampton (by his Trimmer out of 



LAND AND SEA, 1 8 85 AND 1 886 93 

Spangle) and Susan, by Mr. Morrell’s Sunderland out 
of Craven Barbara. I suppose the mating of this 
couple was the beginning of Lord Portsmouth’s success 
though there was a Milton bitch, Handsome, that came 
from Mr. Villebois (\\dth Brocklesby and Osbaldeston 
blood in her) which was mated with the Craven Sailor. 

But anyone wLo wishes to follow the history of this 
once famous pack will find it in the Field of November 
6th, 1886. The standard height of hounds in this pack 
was barely twenty-four inches. Richmond, which I 
brought to the Cleveland, proved a great success with 
us. 

In describing a good run with the Cleveland on 
April 6 th, the following sentences appear : “in gallop- 
ing hard downhill as hounds went out into the open 
from Easby Wood my horse, a bit blown, got a foot 
into an open grip and sent me like a bullet over his head 
into a bog of mud and clay. I was filthy but he was 
worse, and had cut his head. He got away before I had 
got out and I had a nice run after him, but saw him, in 
his anxiety to get to the hounds without me, do a won- 
derful feat. He jumped the gate on the road over the 
railway bridge, about six feet high, as clean as possible.” 

We ended “ the best season I ever had ” on April 
1 8th. I had had sixty-three days. Hounds had been 
stopped only one day (by frost). But this did not mean 
quite the last day’s fun, for I took the “ old hound 
draft ” of the Cleveland and mingled them with four- 
and-a-half couples of my brother’s beagles, and we had 
a drag from Easby via Ayton, Newton, Nunthorpe to 
Spite Hall, Pinchinthorpe, in which our hard riding 
visitors from the Zetland and Hurworth took baths in 
the Nunthorpe Stell, which had to be jumped twice. 



94 half a century of sport 

In June, 1885, my brother and I had some successful 
badger digging in the neighbourhood of Falmouth, 
where my father had a house and a small estate, includ- 
ing the village of Durgan on the Helford River — at 
that time a secluded and beautiful bit of Cornwall, very 
different- to the present day. 

The bass fishing with rod from the Manacles rock 
was excellent this year, but to me it seemed a most 
dangerous sport, and nothing in the sporting line or 
with big game has ever frightened me so much. These 
outer rocks are small and lonely, and on the best one 
only one rod could find room to fish. The tide runs 
round with appalling force and there is usually a big 
swell on in calm weather. 

We used to go near them in my father’s yacht, and 
one of us would be landed from the dinghy, a very risky 
business in the tearing and swirling tide. One moment 
we would be taken almost on to the rock and the next 
carried back far out of reach ; to miss your spring was 
certain death. Once on, there you were for the hours 
the rock was above water. The dinghy went back to 
the yacht, the yacht went off to the coast and those on 
board whiffed for pollack. These were numerous and 
large in the ’eighties on that coast. We often in an 
afternoon caught 100 to 150, many of which were big 
fish and some weighed from 7 to 9 lb. 

For the solitary rod on the lonely rock in the noise 
of the waters, with the warning clang of the bell on the 
Manacles buoy rising above the cries of myriads of 
gulls, among the great shoals of bass, there was plenty 
to do if he could keep his feet on the slippery seaweed 
which coated the rock, and his head amidst the din and 
the swirling, rushing tide when he had a bass on. 



LAND AND SEA, 1 8 85 AND 1 8 86 95 

Though they usually did not run over nine pounds, 
it was quite an art to land one. As the tide rose and the 
island grew smaller, or when the sea grew rough, I 
confess I used to get impatient for the return of the 
yacht, and on one or two occasions both a delay in 
being rescued and the difficulty of re-embarking cured 
me of any further desire for the sport. 

Not so with my elders, for my father and two of my 
uncles, the late John William Pease, and Howard Fox, 
found it a fascinating pursuit. But why they were not 
all drowned is a wonder. I have always been what is 
called a “ good sailor,” but remain a land lubber, for 
the ocean terrifies me far more than anything on land, 
including earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. 

Yet of this June I say, “ Oh, that I could get hold 
of old Father Time and fasten him up.” 

In July I attended the famous Australian Professor 
Galvayne’s class for horse-taming at Guisbrough, and 
learnt and practised his method with success. We 
provided him with difficult and unbroken horses which 
at the end of two hours were backed, ridden and driven 
in harness. 

“ The chief features of his system were to obtain sub- 
mission. He throws the horse by taking up the near 
fore foot and binding the fetlock close up to the forearm. 
He has a cord run through a ring on a sur-cingle which 
is attached to the nose band on the head stall. He 
stands on the near side and draws the head of the horse 
right round on the oflF side till the horse rolls over on 
the near side. 

“ But the main secret of his method is splicing a cord 
to the horse’s tail and fastening the other end to the 
ring under the horse’s chin, and drawing the horse’s 



96 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

head round and fastening the cord so that the horse’s 
head is turned to his tail. In this position the horse is 
helpless and can be accustomed in twenty minutes to 
every kind of noise and sight, whip cracks, tins, opening 
umbrellas, etc. He handles the pupils first with a long 
round pole, which he calls his third arm, till the horse 
is accustomed to it on every part of his body. From 
this stage the education proceeds rapidly, the ‘ tail and 
head ’ cord being retained (but relaxed) for any 
emergency. 

“ His system of telling the ages of horses over nine 
years old and up to thirty I have found reliable and 
useful. Indeed, it is easy in normal mouths to get the 
age from a glance at the upper corner tooth alone.” 

This season (i 8 8 jf) was not such a good grouse year 
in Aberdeenshire as the previous one, but driving we 
did pretty well, seven guns getting 759j brace in eight 
days. 

In September, at the Annual Hunt Meeting, the 
first of the steps was taken which led to Mr. W. H. A. 
Wharton becoming Master of the Cleveland Hounds. 
He is still, forty-five years after, the owner of the 
hounds, and senior of the “ three Masters,” the others 
being Major R. B. Turtoni and Miss Wharton. Mr. 
John Proud was “ given notice ” that the guarantee of 
seven hundred pounds a year was withdrawn. I was 
pressed to take them, but was already committed to my 
candidature for Parliament at York, and the general 
election was imminent. So in the end Mr. Wharton 
was induced to give up the Hurworth and to come back 
to us in 1886. In December I was elected, but seem 
to have managed to get a good many days and. to have 
been in some good runs in spite of politics. 

‘Myor Tuiton retired in 1931. 








LAND AND SEA, 1 885 AND 1 886 97 

On Tuesday, Januarj’ yth, 1886, I was in the chair 
at the meeting of the members of the Cleveland Hunt, 
when a resolution to invite Mr. Wharton to take the 
hounds was unanimously carried on the motion of 
Mr. Thomas Fetch, seconded by Dr. Merryweather. 
On the 19th we accepted his conditions, the Right 
Hon. James Lowther, M.P., and my father, guarantee- 
ing the amount required as a condition by Mr. 
Wharton. 



Chapter XIV 


SURREY IN 1886, SCOTLAND AND CLEVELAND 

I NOW sold two of my three hunters and retained 
one, which I kept for hunting from Town, and 
which was stabled at my cousin, H. A. Barclay’s, place 
at Underhills, near Godstone, whence I could always 
get Saturdays with the Burstow Hounds (Mr. Hoare’s) 
during the session and occasionally a day with the 
Surrey Stag-hounds. 

My first day with the latter was a novel experience, 
and I write in my diary ; “ Jorrocks’s description of 
this game is not far from the mark, but I must say 
hounds did go, and ‘ the calf,’ too.” I was riding a 
mare of Mrs. Barclay’s. We ran from Eden Bridge 
a great distance, and finally did many miles on a main 
road. There were five of us who saw it out, but when 
hounds pulled up at some outbuildings and houses the 
other four departed. 

I found “ the calf ” in a privy, shut the door and 
waited a long time, but no Master, huntsman or 
whipper-in appeared. I asked the owner of the tem- 
porary quarters of the hind, who had taken us nineteen 
miles, where we were. He said, at Mount Ephraim. 
I gazed open-mouthed at him and said are we in Judea ; 
is that town Jericho or Jerusalem ? He said it was 
Tunbridge Wells ; so, fastening up the hounds, I made 
off to the railway, wired the Master that his hounds 



SURREY IN 1886 99 

and deer were on Mount Ephraim, and boxed my horse 
home. 

The following day I had with the Burstow at Hor- 
sted Keynes. I write, “ We had a fine day’s sport over 
a dreadful rough wooded country, and I was much 
struck with the hunting and running power of this 
mixed pack of little hounds. Their cry was very much 
like that of beagles, and they worked on a cold scent 
very much in their busy manner. 

“ Hoare struck me as being a fairly good huntsman, 
persevering without being too meddlesome, though like 
all men in these parts I have come across he has a noisy 
but very monotonous way of cheering and speaking to 
hounds. Instead of the ringing, head-splitting view 
holloa, or ‘ gone away,’ there is hoarse shouting and a 
constant cry of ‘ Fort ! Fort ! Fort ! ’ which I take 
to be the Surrey for ‘ Forrard.’ ” The Burstow Hunt 
uniform used to be a green coat, quite suitable for 
these little hounds, but it is now discarded, except by 
the first whipper-in, who is a farmer. 

The very next day I hunted with the Old Surrey at 
Bletchingley. I say ; “ A goodish-looking lot of 

hounds, but the most miserable huntsman I ever clapt 
eyes on ; never near his hounds, and no idea of hunt- 
ing. The hounds ran well when close at a fox, but 
after every check never took to their noses, and no 
wonder with such an old woman to handle them.” 

I caught an afternoon train to Town as the new 
Parliament had resumed work, and arrived in time to 
see Women’s Sufiffage (second reading) carried by a 
snatch vote, and add ; “ I voted in the various divisions 
in the minority against this extravagant innovation I ” 
and then returned to Godstone for a Saturday with the 



lOO 


HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


Burstow, and had a “ capital day.” So far that was 
four days’ hunting in the first week of the session. 

In February I give a rather grim account of that 
notable sportsman, who is still living, Sir Claude 
de Crespigny, assisting Berry the Hangman at the 
triple execution of the Netherby Hall burglars. He 
was getting his hand in in case of need as High Sheriff 
of Essex, as he would not care to ask a man to do what 
he was afraid to do himself. 

Personally I am in favour of judges and magistrates 
knowing enough about sentences and punishments to 
be fully aware of the punishment they give. When I 
was a resident magistrate in the Transvaal I had to 
witness all flogging sentences carried out which I 
imposed, and was familiar with every detail of prison 
life. In Germany at one time I was told that judges 
had to do twenty-four hours in prison on prison diet ! 
I quite favour this principle. 

I think I have left out of my reminiscences my 
memories of a beautiful place my father took in 1868 
in Perthshire, namely, Rohallion. It was not only the 
beauty of the place and the variety of game about the 
lodge and the lochs and the novelty of seeing roe deer 
and capercailzies near the house which impressed me, 
but the presence in the high walled and fenced park of a 
herd of thirteen American bison and two Indian 
buffaloes. 

These were more or less dangerous, and at least on 
one occasion “ treed ” my father and his keeper when 
shooting there. These bison were brought over by 
one Sir William Stuart of Murthly, and there were 
very strange and romantic stories about Sir William 
Stuart of Murthly which I have never seen recorded in 



SURREY IS 1886 


lOI 


print, but which are worth noting. Though I cannot 
vouch for the accuracy of the story, I give one as told 
to me. 

My dear friend, John G. Millais, who died in March, 
1931, on his sixt\'-sixth birthday, said he had it from 
Sir William’s one intimate friend, John Bett, of 
Rohallion. It is a most remarkable one. 

Sir William was charged with “ cowardice ” after 
the Battle of Waterloo. One can hardly believe the 
charge if half the stories of his daring and adventurous 
life were true. The result of these accusations was that 
he w^as turned down by the girl he loved. So he went 
to the then Wild West, and lived ten years (1840 
to 1850) with the Sioux Indians. He at last came 
back to Murthly and brought not only the buffaloes 
but a number of wild Sioux Indians with him. These 
latter played hell in the countryside, and he had to 
take them back to America. Whilst he was in the 
Rockies, and dressed as a Sioux chief, he was captured 
by some Cheyennes and was on the point of being 
burnt alive by them when at the last moment one of the 
early Scottish trappers named Nicol saved him. 

William Stuart afterwards brought both Nicol’s sons 
to Murthly and adopted them as his own. One was a 
good fellow, and hearing his father was lost went back 
to America to find him. What happened to him I do 
not know, but the other young Nicol was a devil. 

Johnny Millais told me he had all the facts about 
this part of Sir William’s history from his father’s cook, 
who had been with Sir W’iUiam at the time and said 
this scoundrel “ Nicol Stuart ” undoubtedly murdered 
Sir William, his benefactor, sold everything in Murthly 
a few days after Sir William’s death, decamped and 



102 


HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


was never heard of again. I believe this dramatic 
history to be quite true, but it would be interesting to 
know if there is anyone living who can confirm it or 
knows anything of it. I should much like to know 
what became of the bison ; they bred at Rohallion, and 
there seems to be no reason why the creatures should 
have disappeared. In one old volume of Punch I 
remember a picture of someone being pursued (? “ Mr. 
Briggs ”) by buffaloes, and the artist must have been 
familiar with Rohallion. 

On March 27th, 1886, I must have had a curious 
day with the Old Surrey, for being bored I left them for 
an hour to watch some harriers hunt a stag, “ but they 
could not get the beast to leave the railway,” a bit of 
intelligence on the part of the deer which did not 
displease me. But the Old Surrey never found a fox all 
day, and I much preferred my days with the Burstow, 
which were a merry little pack and very pleasing to be 
with. 

, In April I got home, to finish my season with the 
Cleveland and Zetland, and on April 22nd Will Nichol, 
the Cleveland huntsman, after ten years with us, during 
the last seven of which he carried the horn, was pre- 
sented with a silver horn and a purse of money. He 
deserved this recognition, for we never had in my time 
such a continuity of good sport as during these years. 
I can remember no seasons since when scent was so 
regularly good and when foxes ran better. Will Nichol 
is still living (1931), and Mr. Wm. Scarth Dixon, who 
made the presentation, is also among the few survivors 
of that day. 

Will gave them a punishing run from Upleatham 
after the ceremony, “ some of the horses being so 



SURREY IN 1886 103 

punished that they did not get home that night.” 
Nichol was very good at getting a fox away from the 
hills and woodlands and into the open, and seemed 
never to forget that he was there to give the field the 
best day’s sport he could. 

I say of this particular day, I rode a three-year-old 
mare and was beaten about three o’clock. On April 
26th, on the same mare, we had another great day, 
being beaten after a severe run by an old fox who had 
defeated us (from Swindales) several times during the 
last two years, but we made up for this by killing two 
foxes late in the day. 

On April 30th we had our Puppy Show. The 
judges, Tom Farrington and Claxton, awarded the 
first prize for dogs to General, by the old stallion hound 
Lord Portsmouth had given me, Richmond ; and 
Gaudy, a bitch, from the same litter (out of our Glad- 
some), won the first for bitches, which decision highly 
delighted me. The second prize bitch was by the 
Hurworth Cromwell. Now, Wharton had taken over, 
the hounds and added this summer some good hounds 
from the Grove, Zetland and Oakley drafts. 

This year was the stormiest political one during my 
life, with another general election in the summer, so 
that I find few entries to extract for my present 
purpose, but I notice some of the agricultural shovra 
I attended, and remark as to the Yorkshire ones the 
great impetus given to Cleveland Bay breeding by the 
issue of the first Cleveland Bay Stud Book and the 
formation of the Cleveland Bay Horse Society, in which 
Mr. W. S. Dixon, Mr. Thos. Fetch, Mr. J. P. 
Sowerby and I had taken a leading part. 

The historical first volume entailed a vast amount 



104 a century of sport 

of labour, but it was extremely interesting examining 
the material we collected and taking evidence from the 
oldest breeders. Cleveland foals this year sold readily 
for thirty to fifty pounds apiece, and there was amongst 
farmers and other breeders a great demand for mares, 
for which long prices were paid. 



Chapter XV 


ABOUT SPORTSMEN, SPORT AND A SAW- 
SHARPENER (1886) 

I WAS again returned as the senior M.P. for York 
City in 1886, with Frank Lockwood, Q.C., as my 
delightful colleague. When cub-hunting in October 
I mention among others being out, “ George Lowther 
with his numerous family,” also his brother, the Right 
Hon. James Lowther, M.P., who was a neighbour of 
mine at Wilton Castle. The latter was more of a racing 
than a hunting man, but when he hunted with us he 
always did so in pink, and was a cheer)' addition to the 
field, though I never saw him in my life attempt to ride 
to hounds. His brother, George, was an indefatigable 
follower, and I have known him do extraordinary days 
on foot after hounds, and though he was as hard as nails 
he died in 1890 at the age of fifty-three from the results 
of a terribly long day on foot with the Cleveland in foul 
weather. 

His eldest son, Lt.-Col. Sir Charles Lowther, 
D.S.O. (of Swillington), and his brother, Lt.-Col. John 
George Lowther, D.S.< 5 . (of Wilton Castle), were joint 
Masters of the Pytchley. I saw most of George 
Lowther’s children blooded and well entered with the 
Cleveland. Their father did not neglect this part of 
their education, and I have a vivid picture in my 
memory of the father chevying two of his little girls 
£ 



106 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

among the stocks of corn in a stubble field where we 
had killed, and in spite of their resistance seeing that 
the rite was fully administered. 

I note one day in Scotland this October opening a 
grouse’s crop which was full of the flowering heads of 
ling and cranberries — there were 287 cranberries, not 
counting some which fell on the road, and these filled 
a teaspoon twelve and a half times. 

We had a very curious find on October 30th, after 
drawing till 3.30 without the sign of a fox. Hounds 
were drawing Claphow Whin and Reservoir. A keen 
heavyweight, Harry Allison, and I were standing, he 
above and I just below a small high thick whin bush. 
The squire was blowing his hounds out, and we were 
all wet through. Allison said to me, “ Look ! What’s 
this ” He was looking at the bush, which was 
trembling every now and then. We both gave the 
bush a good cracking with our whips, and it shook 
more and more, until Allison roared out, “ Squire, he’s 
here I ” And then a big fox’s head appeared out at 
the top of the bush. He looked very sleepy and 
astonished, struggled up, and after bounding about 
on the top of the whins soon woke up to realities, which 
■included hounds, with a rare start. He gave us a good 
gallop, and we lost him in Kilton. This was an example 
of how literally tight a fox may lie in covert. 

The opening day at The Lobster at Coatham our 
new Master turned out “ very smart,” with himself 
and his two whippers-in all on greys, and his father, 
the old squire (born 1 809), was also on a grey, and in 
scarlet for the first time since he gave up the hounds in 
1874, and “ well he looked.” I notice that only eight 
of the field still wore hunting caps, and now (1931) I 



SPORTSMEN' AN'D A SAW-SHARPEN'ER I07 

am the only one left who is not an official who con- 
tinues to do this with the Cleveland. Will Nichol, 
now Sir Reginald Graham’s huntsman, was out with us. 

This autumn scent was often poor, the worst scent- 
ing days being with a south-west wind. Even wet days 
with an east wind gave us some ver}’ good sport. 

I have many observations on the ^ilferent natures 
and methods of huntsmen and %vhippers-in, and con- 
sider that Wharton’s whippers-in gave him little help 
this season. “ They never get hounds out of covert 
sharp, and their object seems to be to wait for a check, 
and then if the huntsman is not looking to drive every 
hound casting for the line to throw up his head.” 
Whether this criticism was too severe or not, I can 
truthfullv sav I have seen more runs spoiled bv the 
inexperienced whipper-m doing this sort of thing than 
in any other way. It would drive me half wild if I 
was hunting hounds, but a huntsman cannot always be 
swearing at his whippers-in unless he is like the late 
Mr. Forbes, who hunted the Hurworth and cursed 
his men, and Taylor, the best and most faithful of 
second horsemen, all day long. 

I remember one day at Skutterskelf a whipper-in 
bungling to open a gate with the field dying to get 
through it, and a man saying to him, “ Come away you 

fool and let me open it ! ” The whipper-in 

looked round and said, “ And so would you be a 

fool if you was called one every five minutes ! ” As 
for Taylor, he was given his notice “ in the field ” about 
once a fortnight, but thought nothing of it, for as he 
said to a friend of mine who was sympathising with 
him at being sacked, “ I have, sir, been sacked hun- 
dreds of times.” 



I08 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

Forbes was an excellent Master really, a delightfully 
keen huntsman, and though he might curse you loudly 
for anything or nothing, never really fell foul of a good 
sportsman. 

I remember one day when he funked a very big, 
dirty water jump just in front of me at the only possible 
place, and it being a spot you had to go best pace at to 
get over I shot past him, landed in mud, and gave him 
a proper shower bath. He called me everything when- 
ever he caught sight of me for several hours, and then 
in the afternoon sent for me and said : “ Pease, my 
good fellow, would you like me to draw again ? ” and 
I said, “ Very much.” 

I say of a huntsman, “ he should be half a hound 
himself as far as the instinct of pursuit is concerned.” 
One can admire the persevering and pianstaking one 
who delights in coolly hunting a fox inch by inch, but 
it is aggravating when scent is good if a man does not 
seize an opportunity of putting hounds on terms with 
their fox when it is obvious which way he has gone. 
It may be helping them rather than lifting them down 
the furrow of a ploughed field and forward on to grass. 
It is a great art to get hounds on without getting their 
heads up, but it gives hounds confidence in the hunts- 
man and casting power. A huntsman with some fire 
in him transfers his spirit to the pack, and they learn 
to cast boldly and to carry a head. On the hills and in 
the rough they are often best left alone, and it is always 
a serious question interfering with them at any time 
before they are quite at a loss.” 

On November 1 8 th I record a curious conversation 
I had with a tramping “ saw-sharpener ” on my way 
from hunting. He was a very big strong-looking man, 



SPORTSMEN AND A SAW-SHARPENER IO9 

and obviously well educated from his way of talking. 
He said his name was Tom Stanley, and that he was 
related to Lord Derby, his father being a Captain 
Stanley, who distinguished himself at Waterloo. He 
also remarked that he was a gentleman born, came to 
poverty, enlisted and saw ten years’ active service in 
India, went through the Mutiny, had three bullets cut 
out of one leg, two pieces of shell out of his back, lost 
a finger, and received seven scalp wounds. 

He had also been in the prize ring, had fought six 
battles, and confided to me that he was “ the greatest 
drunkard that ever lived.” His chief feat in this 
direction was being drunk for eighteen weeks without 
once being sober. I said, “ What a pity ” ; and he 
replied, Of course it is, but it is all through keeping 
bad company and having an iron constitution ; but,” 
he added, “ I have a splendid mind.” I asked, “ In 
what way ? ” He replied : “ I can understand any- 
thing. There is not a point that can be made which I 
do not see clearly. I can make poetry, I can sing songs 
against any man and make them as I go on, I am the 
best of companions, and I know the whole Bible from 
Genesis to Revelations, and yet I am as poor as you see 
me ; but I would not acknowledge my relations nor 
any other man. I could be acknowledged, and some of 
my brothers are gentlemen, but they are like me in this, 
and would do the same in my place. We are all like 
what my father was. We none of us know what fear 
is, we can all fight like lions, and yet we are all gentle 
and civil spoken, and though I am the biggest drunkard 
who ever lived, I have never been punished by the 
police. I am sixty-eight years old, fear no one, and if 
I cannot live by doing this I can carpenter, work in 



no 


HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


stone or in lead or coal mines.” And so he talked on, 
leaving me wondering how much of his story was true 
— possibly a good deal of it. 

In after years in South Africa I came across many 
gentlemen, and not a few highly connected ones, follow- 
ing menial and mean occupations or living as hermits 
on the Low Veld, whose reduced circumstances was 
not always due to drink or vice. I have watched a 
well-to-do member of the Yorkshire aristocracy waited 
on by her cousin, a waiter in an hotel, who received a 
very modest tip from his fortunate relative, and in the 
hunting field one becomes acquainted with very queer 
cases of rises and falls in the lives of men. 

On November 29th we had the best fifty minutes I 
ever rode through with the Cleveland for pace, distance 
and the country crossed, a full account of which was 
given in the Field. Curiously enough, it was a very 
cold day, and there was a very high west wind (our 
worst one for scent), while it is still more singular that 
our fox ran eleven miles and made an eight-mile point, 
all in. the teeth of this cold strong wind. 

I was riding a young mare I had recently bought of 
Michael Young, then of Cockermouth. She was 
practically thoroughbred, but not in the book. I never 
saw such a half-bred pedigree as was given with her. 
It gave eighteen crosses, presumably blood ones, 
though I could not identify some. I only transcribed 
five of them. 

The pedigree of this mare Eviction was : by Merry 
Sunshine out of Osline, by Laughing Stock, 1859 (by 
Stockwell out of Gaiety, 1844, by Touchstone), her 
grandam by Potentate, 1856, her great-grandam by 
Galac, and her great-great-grandam by Podagus. 



SPORTSMEN AND A SAW-SHARPENER III 

We found in Jackson’s Black Plantation, ran by 
Normanby, Upsall, Hambleton, Ormesby, Gunner- 
gate, Coulby, towards Tanton, south of Severs, left 
Hilton on the left, Ravenscar (Leven Banks), Crathorne 
Bridge and Middleton. At a check at Crathorne one 
of the whippers-in in the rear of the hunt holloaed a fox 
and spoilt the game. The squire persevered on the 
right line when he got back to it, but in vain. The time 
and distance given here is to Crathorne Bridge in fifty 
minutes. Six of us at most saw this run all through. 

We had an extraordinarily slow hunt on December 
13 th after a small very dark fox found in Guisbrough 
Park at 10.45 S’*™-? gave it up at 3.15 p.m. I 
viewed him several times during the day, and we were 
often twenty-five minutes behind him. John Proud 
saw him after we called ofiF, and watched him into 
Upleatham Coverts, “ very tired.” I finish a long 
account of this four and a half hours’ hunt with the 
remark : “ Wind in the east, which accounts for the 
holding scent.” 



Chapter XVI 


ODDS AND ENDS FROM MY DIARY, 1887-88 

M y cousin, Mr. E. E. Barclay (M.F.H.), sent me 
a curious pet in the winter of 1887, a hybrid 
between a prairie wolf and a fox terrier bitch. It was a 
funny-looking animal, with “ a wolfs coat, thick fur 
under, wolf coloured, moves like a fox, has a splendid 
mouthful of teeth, but its ears drop over, spoiling the 
foxiness of its head.” It was tame enough in kennel or 
on a lead, but was the maddest creature with other dogs 
or when taken out loose, getting crazy with excitement 
and tearing wildly all over the country, without heed 
of voice, whistle or whip. 

I soon wearied of his ways, and of the ever-present 
danger of his attacking sheep, and gave him to Lord 
Marcus Beresford. I hope he liked him, but I never 
heard anything more about the creature. 

In March, 1887, I got away from the House, had a 
few days’ hunting, and a little sport from Town. My 
friend, Mr. Cyril Flower, M.P. (afterwards Lord 
Battersea), had some fine performers in his stud, and I 
thoroughly enjoyed the mounts he gave me with Selby 
Lowndes in the Vale of Aylesbury. 

I also say, on April 5 th : “ Had an excellent gallop 
with the Surrey calf-hounds, Theodore Lloyd giving 
me a capital mount, and dinner afterwards.” Mr. 
Theodore Lloyd, of Croydon, was a cousin of my 



ODDS AND ENDS 


113 

mother and the most hospitable and generous of men. 
A brother of his, Mr. Alfred Lloyd, lived not far off 
and had a most wonderful herd of Shorthorns at this 
time. People to-day would open their eyes at the prices 
that were then given for Shorthorns from the best 
herds. 

On March 28 th I was at home, had a very long day 
in our east country, a two hours’ run, and did not get 
home till 9.15 p.m. The next day, jumping a fence on 
foot, I broke my leg and sprained an ankle after hunting 
with the Hurworth all day. 

What with the Queen’s Jubilee, politics, and some 
weeks spent in Ireland, I find nothing in the sporting 
line worth recording until the autumn. We began 
cubhunting in August earlier than usual, and it was a 
good grouse year. 

On Sunday, August 28th, I write : “ Lord 

Doneraile died of hydrophobia on Friday, 26th, having 
been bitten by his tame fox. It is cxirious that an 
M.F.H. should meet his death so directly from a fox.” 
One wonders how the fox went mad. Personally, I 
think hydrophobia and many other maladies, however 
rarely they may occur, can be developed spontaneously. 
In fact, it is difficult to conceive of any disease having 
always existed. It must have originated in a particular 
individual, and if in one, why not in another ? 

This must have been a good partridge year, for our 
bags were larger than usual in Cleveland, where we 
seldom got in average seasons more than 30 brace a 
day over dogs. I mention bags such as a day at Newton, 
when Sir Edward Grey was staying with us, and my 
brother out, of 41 brace, but remark at the scarcity of 
ground game since the Hares and Rabbits Act. 



I 14 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

Part of October, 1887, we were driving grouse in 
Scotland in very wintry weather. I remember a very 
icy morning going out at daybreak with my brother 
and A. E. Leatham (in his day, a great cricketer, a big- 
game hunter and an excellent shot) to try to find a 
stag for “ Ted ” Leatham. As he had never killed one 
my brother and I planned that he should have a proper 
baptism on his bald head if we succeeded. 

Soon after it was light we spotted a stag and he did 
his stalk. He got it, and we hurried to the scene 
through the snow and accomplished our purpose. 
Leatham was a very strong man and when roused could 
give most men a good punishing, so we made off in 
fear of the consequences. We had a most exhausting 
run in snow and deep heather, with him after us, 
through burns and ravines, till we reached the River 
Gairn, which we plunged through. From the other 
side we watched Ted’s ablutions in the icy waters, 
hoping he would cool down. As we were two to one, 
cold and reason eventually prevailed, for after all it 
was all fair and according to rule. 

We were all tickled with the solemn keeper, Lundie, 
who had watched this Saxon performance, with blood 
from his gralloching knife flowing over his flaxen beard, 
and who grunted with a kind of laughter which was 
like a cow’s cough. This was a very tiring prelude 
to^ a day’s grouse driving, and rather unusual, I 
think. 

There are few more lovely sights than Deeside and 
Perthshire when early frosts have changed the birches 
to gold, the rowans into flaming scarlet, the geans to 
maroon and crimson, and you see this all mixed up 
with the dark Scotch pine and spruces against brown 



ODDS AND ENDS II ^ 

and blue mountains capped with snow. It is worth 
while being in Scotland in October ! 

On Thursday, November loth, we chopped, at 
Angrove, the heaviest and fattest fox that anyone 
present had ever seen. The Squire displayed it and 
took opinions as to its weight. All agreed that it must 
weigh over twenty pounds. I have never seen one like 
it. It was a two-year-old monster. The same day, in 
a fast run from Seamer Whin to Maltby, near the latter 
village I saw our fox, a field and a half ahead, turn 
round, crouch and face hounds. He paused and 
then went on back for Seamer. I was sorry for him, 
as he was a game fox, and galloping to Seamer main 
earth opened it to save him, but the pack killed him 
before he made it. 

I have many good runs recorded in November and 
December, but snow came towards the end of Decem- 
ber (and I was in Ireland part of the month). Still, we 
hunted in the snow, but had poor sport. I record 
four of these days. 

Of a fast ten minutes from Severs I say the grief 
was remarkable. “ I fell at the Thornton Stell, the 
Squire came down, Edwin Fox and Tom Ward fell 
twice, my uncle, Arthur Pease, and others came down 
as well.” 

On January 14th, 1 8 8 8, we had a remarkably severe 
run in our east country, with a small fox with a dirty 
little brush and a piece off his right ear, from Liverton 
Lane Head Plantation over the Roxby Danby and 
Waupley countries. “ It was two hours without a 
check, a burning scent (E. wind) and hounds flying 
the whole time. He was pulled down by Bluecap, on 
Waupley Moor. Hospitable David Petch at dark 



Il6 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

provided refreshment for horse and man at Liverton.” 

On the 1 6th we had another big run, Bonnybell, 
one of the bitches I got from Lord Portsmouth, 
putting us right at a critical part by holding the line 
for over a mile by herself. 

We had a little trouble this January about the Hunt, 
as my father, Jim Lowther and I thought it unfair, 
being the largest subscribers, that we should have to 
find another ,^320 as guarantors, as the total sub- 
scriptions, including ours, only came to So 

we withdrew our guarantee. 

In the end Wharton said he would carry on if : 
(i) we gave him the hounds ; (2) we paid all poultry 
and other damages, and (3) we paid all keepers’ 
finds. We accepted his conditions unanimously, 
resolving to create a reserve fund out of which we 
could make kennels and purchase hounds if the Squire 
left us to hunt elsewhere. 

For more than forty years this has worked well, but 
at the time there was anxiety about how we should 
fare without our pack of hounds. 

On February 6th a Crinkle fox gave us a whole 
day’s run of five hours and ten minutes, fast to begin 
with, then a slow dragging run all over the eastern 
moorland country (I give the details of it) and beat 
us at 4.40, when hounds were “ called off.” I say, 
“ I never saw such a run for hardworking perseverance 
on the part of hounds.” Wonder, Templar (first 
season), old Scornful, Bonnylass, Bonnybell and 
Gameboy I mention as displapng great hunting 
capacities. I had been on my mare Eviction from 
8.30 a.m. to 6.50 p.m., and then I go back to London 
exclaiming, “ Oh, the loathesomeness of London ; 



ODDS AND ENDS Il7 

its mucky faces, greasy pavements, its smoke-laden 
atmosphere and filthy leafless trees ! ” 

In March when staying with the late Right Hon. 
James Tomkinson, M.P., at Willington Hall, Tar- 
porley, he mounted me with the Cheshire, and better 
performers than his horses it would be difficult to 
find. I describe the Cheshire country as a “ grand ” 
one, but am thankful that I generally hunt where 
such enormous fields are unknown. On one day I 
describe it as an “ awful mob ” — and when hounds 
ran only horses of Tomkinson’s class could get away 
from it. Jim Tomkinson was at this time, I should 
say, the hardest rider in England, and had earned 
the name of “ Jumpkinson,” from the numerous and 
extraordinary feats he had performed. Some of 
these many thought only a madman would attempt. 
I have never seen anyone else who was sane and sober 
so “ mad keen ” to the end of his life. He was sane 
and sober enough and, indeed, was an ardent tee- 
totaler. He was killed at the last fence (I think, 
leading) in the House of Commons Steeplechase in 
1910, when in his seventieth year — I should say the 
death he would have preferred to any other ! 

I finished my season with the Cleveland on April 
14th, but they hunted on for some time longer. This 
season these hounds were out ninety-seven days, had 
one blank day and accounted for 1 35 foxes, of which 
they killed 35 brace. 

My brother and I in May again took our terriers 
down to our cousin “ Ted ” Leatham’s home at 
Misarden in Gloucestershire and had some mining 
operations on a grand scale in pursuit of badgers. Of 
one day, I say, after a long dig we got within measur- 



1 1 8 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

able distance of one, and I was (with others in the 
“ cutting ”) just handing Wickle in to “ tempt ” the 
badger out, which would save us much rock chipping 
and digging, when he bolted through my brother’s legs, 
sending one of his legs up in the air, and I had just 
time to put my foot on his back. Had it not been for 
Wickle seizing him as quick as lightning by the head 
and holding on, I should have been bitten in the ankle. 
He was a very good one and “ we turned him out at 
Pinchinthorpe.” 



Chapter XVII 


A COLLECTION OF RECORDS, 1888-89 

I N the summer of 1888 my eldest sister, Mrs. 

Calmady-Hamlyn, died. She had been my com- 
panion in nursery and schoolroom days, in country 
rides and in the Row, and my diaries contain little 
apart from domestic and political topics. She left an 
only daughter, a great amateur pony breeder, and 
well known in Devon and the West Country to-day. 

I see I showed a three-year-old mare, Caress, as a 
three-year-old hunter fourteen times this summer, and 
she won thirteen firsts and one second prize. When 
she was older she won many firsts, including Islington. 
I mention her as an example of the produce of a 
Roadster (now called Hackney) mare by Syrian. I 
owned the latter sire at this time. He was by Ment- 
more out of Princess, and had a successful Turf career 
— ^won many races and was placed in twenty-seven. 
At seven years old he won the Great Shropshire 
Handicap, beating Lowlander, Rostrevor, Thunder 
and Peeping Tom, and ran third, carrying 9st. 41b. to 
Saccharometer (yst. izlb.) and Lily Agnes (yst, 7 ^^*) 
in the Chester Stewards Cup ; but the sensational race 
for the Esher Cup when he was eight years old, was 
as exciting as any in his long career. He ran the 
dead-heaters there to a “ short head,” giving Grey 
Palmer 321b. and Munden i^lb. For the Sandown 



120 


HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


Members’ Handicap, at eight years old, he was given 
I2st. I2lb, to carry, and his weights were such this 
year that he had no chance of a win. For quality, 
courage and action he was a horse after my own heart. 
He got many winners and later some fine performers 
in the hunting field. Among those who used him in 
Cleveland whose hunters (home bred) still retain the 
character of Syrian is our present joint Master, Major 
Turton. But to return to the mare he got off my 
hackney mare Mother Brown — she was as good at her 
job with hounds as in the show ring. 

I had a year later a fall with her overjumping herself 
and landing and slipping up on the hard high road, 
and she broke her knees very badly, so I sold her at 
Tattersalls, where she with her broken knees was 
knocked down to the late Mr. Cecil Boyle, of Broghill, 
for 240 guineas. Given plenty of courage, quality and 
pace in a hackney mare there are worse ways than 
breeding a hunter than this ; though there are few 
worse if the mare is not the right sort. 

Part of October and November I was in Ireland 
and stayed for a short time with one of my friends, 
Mr. Pierce Mahony, M.P., who had a particularly 
nice herd of red and black Kerries. Mr. John Ellis, 
M.P., of Scalby had asked me to pick out some good 
red Kerry heifers for him, and I was attracted by both 
the red and the black Kerries and also by some Dexters. 
I bought a few black Kerries and Dexters for my 
farm, but I gave up the latter, which for their size 
gave a good yield of good milk on poor pastures, for 
three reasons — they were rather inclined to abort, they 
had difficulty in calving owing to the calves having 
such big heads, and the milkers complained that they 



A COLLECTION OF RECORDS 


I2I 


had almost to lie down to milk these dwarf cows. The 
Kerries did well, but were very wild at first and I did 
not persevere with them, preferring for my dairy herd 
Shorthorns and Jerseys, and especially the cross be- 
tween these two breeds. 

Sport with our hounds was not great in November 
and December, but there were a few good hunts and 
one very long run on December 27th, of which I relate 
that “ Johnny Fetch had the best part of it to himself, 
at which he was highly pleased,” and that I rode a 
stern chase, and with a few more only caught them 
towards the end, having ridden some way behind the 
fortunate Johnny. Our only revenge was that when 
Bill, the whipper-in, had asked a man if he had seen 
the hounds, he replied, “ Aye, an nea a yan wiv ’em 
save an awd chap on a gallovoa ” ; which was well 
rubbed into John P. Fetch. 

I say, “ I was followed by young Clive Dixon.” This 
is the first mention I find of one who was to become 
famous in our part of the world as the pride of our 
Hunt and than whom there was no better and straighter 
man to hounds or in life and death. Like the best, he 
fell in action in the Great War, being killed on 
November 5th, 1914. He will reappear in these 
pages, but the place he filled remains henceforth 
empty. 

Irx the autumn of 1888 I record a few incidents with 
the BilsdgJe and anecdotes about Bobby Dawson, whom 
I have mentioned before as the whipper-in to the 
quaint establishment. He says he had whipped-in 
for “ aboon [above] fifty year.” 

He says of the Field correspondent of that day, 
“ Arundel,” who toured the Hunts (I hope some of 



122 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

my readers can follow our dialect !) : “ Yan o’ thease 
writin’ chaps whea had hoonted all ower England, 
Scotland an’ Ireland cam ti see t’ Bilsdale dogs. Well, 
ye knaw, he cooms oop tiv ous joost as t’ dogs were 
drawin’ t’ Banks [i.e. the Cleveland Hills], an’ he ses 
‘ Good morning.’ ‘ Good morning,’ says Ah. An’ 
then he sez, ‘ Ye’ve got nobbut a bad mount.’ 

“ ‘ Aye,’ sez Ah, ‘ pow-er fauks hez pow-er waays, 
bout mebby,’ sez Ah, ‘ Ah’ll be there at neet when 
thoo isn’t,’ an’ he gav me a pawky luke an’ left me 
behint ; boud afore neet efter roonin’ aboon [above, 
i.e. more than] trey hours, he’d getten eneaf [enough], 
and his horse mair than eneaf, an’ I cam oup wiv him, 
an’ ez Ah wez gannin’ past him, he tons ti me an’ sez, 
‘ Ah ’pologise fer makkin’ that remark aboot yer horse,’ 
an’ Ah sez tiv him, ‘ Ah telt thee Ah’d mebby be 
nigher tiv ’em afore neet. Sae good-bye,’ sez Ah, ‘ fer 
Ah hevn’t tahm ti wa-aste talkin’ ti yer ! ’ ” 

It was the same day that the Field correspondent, 
Mr. Blew, had the conversation (reported by Major 
Fairfax-Blakeborough in one of his books) with Bobby 
about the antiquity of the Bilsdale hounds (which they 
assert claim descent from the Duke of Buckingham’s 
pack in the seventeenth century), when Bobby asserted 
his hounds to be the oldest pack of foxhounds in the 
kingdom. 

To this claim Mr. Blew opposed that of the South 
Dorset (.'* descended from the True Blue pack of the 
eighteenth century), at which Bobby stared, and then 
said, “ Dowsett 1 Dowsett ! Niver heer’d tell o’ siccan 
[such a] pleeace 1 Coum oup mare I ” and rode off in 
disgust. 

Bobby gave me an account, too, of a midnight hunt 



A COLLECTION OF RECORDS 1 23 

they had after a day’s hunting about Swain by. “ We’d 
hed a long day sae put oup fer a bit at Stowsla [Stokes- 
ley] on t’ rawd yam [home]. Oor chaps hed getten a 
canny soup [sup] o’ gin in tiv ’em, an’ aboot ten o’clock 
at neet they gat on ti t’ bosses an’ lowsed [loosed out] 
oot t’ dogs an’ went oup t’ baank be Bouzby [Busby]. 

“ Joost as they’d got ti t’ top o’ ’t baank a fox crosst 
t’ rawd, an’ iv a minit t’ dogs was on t’ line, an’ we 
hoonted him till we ran him in tiv a haul [hole] aboot 
tweea o’clock o’ t’ morn, an’ that a Soonda [Sunday] 
fer t’ soop 0’ gin had made t’ chaps sae ’at they’d 
fergetten it were Soonda — thaw^ Ah deeant knaw it 
wad a made a vasst o’ dilFerence if they hedn’t getten 
t’ gin.” 

Bobby informed me which he considered the best 
bitch in the pack (I forget her name, but fancy it was 
Charlotte). He said : “ She’s yan ah fetched ya day 
oot o’ Farndale in a pawk [in a sack]. Yan o’ t’ Farn- 
dale chaps gav’ her ti oor chaps.” I hear Bobby has 
just “ resaan’d ’’[resigned] his post. My informant 
said : “ Sic an aud chap wez ti nae yuse — he wez good 
fer nowt.” 

Harvest was very late this year and we began cub- 
hunting on September 26th, when I say, “ hardly any 
corn cut.” One day when grouse driving in October, 
in Aberdeenshire, I saw two separate lots, one of three 
and the other of four golden eagles, the one lot 
hunting on Cullardoch and the other at the Crathie 
end of our moor. 

This year there was an invasion of Pallas’s sand 
grouse in the eastern districts of England, and a few 
came to Cleveland. Having read of this in the papers, 
one day when I was out with my gun (October 23rd) 



124 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

I recognized one on the side of a stell about a hundred 
yards off and did a successful stalk — as I crawled 
through rushes flat on my stomach and popped my hat 
over it and secured a perfect specimen alive. I kept it 
alive for some weeks, but it died. It is now in the 
Middlesbrough Museum. We gave these migrants 
special protection by Act of Parliament in the hope 
that they would nest in East Anglia and remain, but 
all in vain. It is, I think, the only bird which has an 
Act of Parliament to itself. 

A boy was staying with me early in January, 1889 
— Lionel Palmer, a son of Sir Charles Palmer, of 
Crinkle ; and on January 6th we had a good rough 
run of two hours and forty minutes. I remark of him : 
“ He got two good croppers, lost two shoes and gave 
his mare a dirty face and came home rejoicing, saying 
he liked it — ^he went like a brick,” which seems to me 
a poor simile. Two days after, in a run, “ he got a 
capital upset and enjoyed his cropper as usual.” He 
went into the Canadian Mounted Police and roughed 
it in the West, came home eventually, and died while 
he was still young. 

On the 1 9th, after a morning’s run on the hills, we 
had a curious find at my place. For some weeks past 
every now and then in the morning a fox had jumped 
out of our kitchen garden over the wall into the little 
plantation behind. He was there this morning, and 
just before noon the gardener was nailing up some 
apricot trees on the wall, when a hare screamed. He 
looked over and saw the fox in the act of killing a hare. 
The gardener got over the wall and took the hare from 
the fox. When we came two hours later we found the 
fox at the very same spot, and gave him the biggest 



A COLLECTION OF RECORDS 


125 

fright of his life, for we ran him over the low country, 
over the hills, and then back into the low country to 
ground. “ That will larn him to kill hares under the 
gardener’s nose and when he is hammering the wall 
at noonday. I think he must, lion-like, have returned 
to find his kill.” 



Chapter XVIII 


REMINISCENCES AND REFLECTIONS, (1889) 

H ere is an incident that occurred one day with 
the Hurworth which is perhaps worth mention- 
ing. I must first explain, however, that the previous 
summer I had gone to Michael Young at Cockermouth, 
intending to try to buy a horse called Report with a 
great reputation in Ireland, but whose previous owner, 
a Mr. Burke, had had a bad fall. 

Just before setting off my neighbour and cousin, Mr. 
Edwin Fox, said to me : “ I wish you would try to 
buy a horse called Report for me when you are at 
Michael Young’s,” and he told me a good deal of what 
he had heard. This put me in rather a fix, but I was 
anaous to see him well mounted. When I got there 
Michael produced half a dozen of the ones I fancied 
most of a long string he had brought over from Ireland, 
and I rode them each against the others over the 
Cockermouth Steeplechase course. Report struck me 
as good enough for the Grand National. He had flat, 
shelly feet, but was very fast and a great leaper and 
easy to ride. So I bought him for Fox for ,^120, 
for I would take him if he did not suit. I bought two 
grey mares, Nora Creina and Peggy Dillon, who 
turned out all I could wish, giving ,^150 for the 
two. 

Now, on this particular day Fox had Report out 



REMINISCENCES 


127 

with the Hurworth, and he was “ full of beans ” 
and short of work. In a run he jumped so big over 
a fence into a road that he covered the whole and 
landed on some cattle in a gateway on the far side, 
came down, broke a bloodvessel, and blood poured 
from his mouth. 

When I got home from my day with the Cleveland 
I found Report in my stables, he being too far gone 
to get the half-mile on to his own. The vet. said 
he would not give sixpence for him, and the horse 
was certainly blowing Wd and in a bad way. 

Fox wanted my views. I said : “ I should not 
give him up. At any rate, I will give you 400 six- 
pences for him.” Report did not look much better 
the next day, but I cheered his owner by offering 
1000 sixpences. About a month later other vets.’ 
opinions having been taken, and all considering that 
the chances were of his not standing work again, I 
wrote to a friend of mine in Italy, Freddy Meuricofee 
of Naples, who was fond of steeplechasing, and had 
his racehorses at Genoa. In reply to a letter in which 
he asked if I could find him a horse to ride in the 
Italian Grand National, I said I could and told him 
all about Report. Fox asked forty pounds for him, 
which I gave, and I sent the horse out with a groom 
to Genoa for another fifty pound or so. He was a 
great success in Italy, and won the Italian Grand 
National with Meuricoffre up. 

On January 26th my brother and I had a rattling 
day with the Hurworth. Hounds met at Skutter- 
skelf and this was Lord Falkland’s first day’s hunting 
with the Hurworth from his new home, for he had 
only recently come into residence. We found at 



128 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

once in his coverts and by about 3 o’clock most had 
had enough. After a second fast gallop — ^which 
landed us at Yarm, my mare had had enough, but my 
brother offered me his first horse as he had two out, 
when Forbes asked the select few who had come 
through in the last fast thing — my brother, George 
Eliott (M.P.), George Macbean. and myself — “ like 
the good sportsman he is, ‘ Shall I draw again ? ’ ” 

We chorused “ Yes ! ” for scent was good, and we 
went on to Farrar’s Whin. Hounds went in, the 
whipper-in at the southern corner yelled “ Gone 
away ! ” and off we went, hounds flying out and racing 
from the start. 

It was a cracker by Fighting Cocks and night was 
coming on when we reached the Darlington and 
Stockton Railway, when only my brother and I were 
with them, and luckily came with hounds to some 
railway gates. These were locked and chained, so 
I jumped off, found on the railway a yard of railway 
metal and we soon had the gates smashed. We heard 
hounds in the dark, reached them near Sadberge 
about two miles on, whipped them off and took them 
to a farm. I never got home that night. 

There was subsequently a row about the railway 
gates. Forbes knew about them, but few others 
did, and when he was pounced on by the railway 
people said he had seen nothing, and kept mum — 
now everyone may know how we managed to stop 
hounds on a dark night ! Looking for Hunt servants 
in the dark seemed useless, but we came across a 
whipper-in in a lane, with his horse dead beat in the 
ditch, got some gruel for him at a farm, and left him to 
get hounds home. 



REMINISCENCES 


129 

On January 24th, 1889, a cousin of mine, Edwin 
L. Pease, died from a hunting accident with the 
Zetland ; but it is perhaps hardly fair to call it a 
hunting accident, for he was giving a too fresh puller, 
a horse called Hussar, some turns round a ploughed 
field to “ steady ” him (usually a useless proceeding) 
and got an awful fall, fracturing seven ribs and sustain- 
ing other injuries. His horses, like many others, were 
generally too full of corn for their work. 

I have seen many good ones ruined by this very 
prevalent system of overfeeding horses who perhaps 
do not do a day once a week and are hateful rides 
in consequence. The night before his fall he said 
at dinner, “ I have not had a fall this season,” and 
added, “ I must not boast, as the last time I said that 
I had an awful cropper the next day ! ” The doctor 
said, “ With all his broken bones he was like a sack 
of stones.” 

Here is an extract from the entry on Thursday, 
February 14th. “ Frost suddenly gone — ^thought I 

would hunt with the Hurworth at Over Dinsdale — 
sent Peggy Dillon to box by rail to Yarm — no horse 
box — she came back (so far about six miles of road) 
here by 10.15 a.m. I got on to her and trotted her 
all the way to Over Dinsdale (about twenty miles) and 
found them blowing hounds out of the first cover. 
Jack (my brother) was there — ^found at Beverley 
Wood and ran by Hornby, Smeaton to Pease’s 
Plantations — ^to Wellbury, back to Tees Banks, 
running four hours, and killed at dark. 

“ Mare carried me first rate — ^glad to get her into 
Jack’s stables at Hurworth — ^rattled fast into Darling- 
ton. Jack in his dog-cart with ‘ Bubbles ’ in the 



1 30 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

shafts, each with a big piece of cake in our hands, 
caught the 6.45 p.m. train Darlington and attended 
a big meeting in Middlesbrough, at which I spoke.” 
This little horse. Bubbles, was a wonder. My brother 
was once playing cricket at 7 p.m. at Wynyard, had 
a quarter of a mile to walk to his trap at the front door 
carrying his cricket bag and had some fourteen to 
fifteen miles to cover to his quarters at Darlington, 
dress and go out to dinner at eight and he did it. 
Anyone who knows these roads will allow this to be 
a marvellous performance. The fastest drive I ever 
did was miles in twenty-seven minutes behind a 
blood mare by Struan. 

The Cleveland had some hard days this February 
and March. On March 8th we killed three dog 
foxes and “ the old squire (Wharton) being eighty 
to-day and out, went home with a brush and a head.” 

I think we did not hunt into May this year for at 
the end of April I give the summary of the season 
with the Cleveland : 

Eighty-five days hounds out (three of which were 
blank days). 

Twenty-five brace killed. 

Twenty-eight brace to ground. 

We had finished apparently before the 25th, as 
I find, my brother and I, on one day, and my little 
son and I had two good days with my brother’s 
beagles after moor foxes about then. Of the latter 
day I say, “ Ran a fox over the moor and up to him, 
but the little beggars would not tackle him and finally 
he got to ground in Howden Gill.” 

Of the former day I write, “ Up at 4 a.m. and had 
a grand hunt with Jack (my brother) and his beagles. 



REMINISCENCES 


I3I 

A lovely hot day, drag for half an hour on the moor, 
when he got up in front of us and we ran him by Percy 
Cross via Ayton, Hanging Stone, Pinchinthorpe and 
lost him in Hutton Middle Gill (We were riding.) ” 

But between these two days I got leave to invite 
the Bilsdale over to hunt our coverts, as there were 
so many foxes, and here are some extracts from the 
record of that day. 

Mr. Horsfall of Potto had become Master of the 
Bilsdale, but without disturbing the primitive ways of 
that ancient Hunt. On April 22nd I rode over to 
his place and arranged with him for the collection 
of hounds the same day in the dale, and for them to 
spend the night at my place. 

There was a remarkable and regular follower on 
foot of the Bilsdale named Coulson, to whom was 
assigned the duty of collecting the hounds from the 
scattered farms, and he always went on foot. He 
went from Swainby to Bilsdale and then did twenty- 
two miles before he got “ t’ dogs ” to Chop Yat, 
and had another ten or eleven to get them to Pinchin- 
thorpe. 

Horsfall, his groom, Nicholas Spink (ex M.F.H.), 
and Bobby Dawson, mounted and all in pink (Bobby’s 
coat was purple with age), with Coulson, in green, 
on foot, arrived at 9.30 p.m. with seven-and-a-half 
couples of hounds, and after a good feed all went to 
bed in their hunting clothes ! Bobby’s couple of 
hounds were dull and half-starved-looking brutes. I 
said something to Bobby about their looks, and he 
replied, “ Aye, they’re alius oot o’ fettle an’ desput 
pla-aged wi’ wurms.” 

I asked Nicholas about them, and he said in a tone 



132 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

of great bitterness, “ Robert niwer had owt tiv onny 
yuse — an’ he keeps oop t’ breead ” (breed). It is a 
fact that when some years ago Feversham suppressed 
the Bilsdale Hunt (he owned the whole of the Bilsdale 
country where hounds were kept), on account of the 
depredations of the hounds in summer and the com- 
plaints of the shooting tenants, and had forbidden 
his tenants to keep hounds, that Bobby secreted a 
few in his farm buildings, bred from them, and that 
for seven years they never came outside by day- 
light ! 

When at the end of that time the terrible edict was 
withdrawn, to everybody’s surprise Bobby produced 
from his barn some of “ t’awd Bilsdale breed ” of the 
Buckingham blood — and at any rate kept up the claim 
of the oldest blood in England. 

The Bilsdale had had many troubles, and one had 
led to another, for it had been the custom immemorial 
when hunting ceased in the spring, in order to pre- 
vent the hounds hunting during the summer and 
from straying far from the farms or getting among 
the moor sheep, to “ wire ” the forefeet — i.e. to put 
a ring through the web between the toes. There was 
really no cruelty in the operation — ^more than putting 
a ring into an ear, but or course it punished a hound 
that pain would not deter from hunting. The Hunt 
were prosecuted for cruelty to animals and had to 
give the practice up, hence hounds did do damage, 
hence the horrible edict. 

I say of the day’s hunting : “ I think my York 
constituents and others would have smiled at my 
breakfast party at 4.50 a.m.” Before breakfast I had 
gone round to the stables and found the “ Bilsdale 



REMINISCENCES 


133 

chaps ” out of bed, Bobby grooming “ t’awd meear,” 
and Coulson, after his forty-mile walk the previous 
day, was sitting smoking his pipe. His ancient horn 
interested me ; it was a large curved brass one with 
a big mouth. 

After they had eaten any quantity of herrings, 
ham, eggs and sausages, we “ met ” at 5.30 a.m., 
and a fair number turned up at the meet. Hounds 
were taken to covert in couples and then “ loused ” 
into it full cry — ^great white racing brutes (Charmer 
for my money !). 

We found all right, but as all breed earths were 
open at this time of year and scent was bad we had 
more amusement than sport, and we knocked off on 
the moors at noon, but not before William Scarth 
Dixon had broken his collar-bone on the moor and 
Bobby had had a good cropper. Coulson, after six 
and a half hours’ hunting on foot, had a twenty-mile 
walk home to Swainby ! 



Chapter XIX 


OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF SPORT AND SPORTS- 
MEN, 1889-90 

T om WILKINSON of Hurworth, the senior 
representative of the noted Wilkinson brothers 
who founded the Hurworth Hounds, hunted hard all 
the season and had a pack of otter hounds at this time, 
with which he put away the summer months. Otter 
hunting is no doubt fascinating enough for the owner 
and huntsman of the pack, but is often for people of 
my temperament a dull kind of sport as lookers on, 
and often there is such a mobbing and heading of the 
otter that it does not quite accord with my ideas of 
hunting, but a cry of hounds and pretty surroundings 
certainly are attractions. 

On April 30th, before resuming my Parliamentary 
duties, I went over to Crathorne on the Leven for a 
day with Tom Wilkinson, after a cup of tea only at 
5.30 a.m. It was a very cold, showery day and two 
hours up to one’s waist in the river was a “ cooler.” 
I tailed one otter, and taking a pad made for home at 
five, glad when I got in of another cup of tea, having 
had nothing to eat since dinner the night before. 

During this hot summer, when I was at home for a 
few days, I did a good deal of sitting over the fox and 
badger earths near my house — and saw much of their 
inhabitants, badgers and cubs coming out of the same 



SPORT AND SPORTSMEN 1 35" 

earths as the fox cubs. On June I2th I say : “At 
lo p.m. I was astonished at seeing five great big old 
hoary badgers come out of a hole within a foot of where 
I was standing, and they all went into the earth where 
the fox cubs were bred. ... A sparrowhawk has a 
nest just above the gate into the cover. I hope the 
keepers, who are walking the coverts day by day to 
find it will miss it ; they do more harm than a dozen 
hawks. I like to have these wild things about and to 
watch them.” 

Later in the month I was staying with Lord Rose- 
bery at Mentmore, and he showed me all his bloodstock 
at Foxhall. I was much interested in the old stallions 
Dutch Skater and Foxhall. I liked Dutch Skater, but 
Foxhall’s stock had no forelegs and ankles. It is 
terrible the number of bad forelegs and ankles one sees 
amongst blood horses. 

Each autumn I used to stay with Frank Lockwood 
when he was driving his moor. This year on August 
31st I experienced the nearest escape from death I 
ever had. 

(one of his guests) was stumbling along at my 

side along a cart track in the heather after limch on 
our way to the butts, and put his foot in a deep rut, 
stumbled sideways, thrusting his gun barrels under my 
nose. I was just watching to see where his gun would 
go, and saw the two holes of his muzzle end under my 
cheek, and before I knew what had happened I fell on 
to the moor completely stunned. His gun actually 
went off under my ear, about an inch from my throat. 
I was deaf for a long time after and felt at the time as 
if half my head had gone. I never knew of a gun 
walking up to butts with his gun loaded and full 



136 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

cock. However, a miss is as good as a mile. He said 
he was afraid he had given me a very dreadful fright, 
and he shot merrily all the afternoon — but never again 
on Frank’s moor. 

We began cubhunting on September 9th at 5.30 
a.m. at Saltburn, with 391 - couples of hounds out ; 
very hot and dry. After ten days’ grouse driving in 
Aberdeenshire I had a day’s shooting with my brother- 
in-law, Robert Barbour, of Bonskeid, in Perthshire. I 
mention this, as I do not think a laetter mixture of 
game is to be had in any other county, and on this day 
in October we got pheasants, partridges, grouse, black- 
game, woodcock, snipe, cappercaille, brown and blue 
hares, rabbits and roe, also one teal. 

I give accounts of extraordinarily good runs with the 
Cleveland this November, and one good day from 
Winton with the Hurworth. I mention on this 
occasion among the few in the first flight, and who had 
to jump the Wiske twice, the present Lord Lonsdale, 
the late Lord Londonderry, and the late Lord Henry 
Vane Tempest. 

I see that after a great day with the Cleveland with 
a grand fox, who beat us by going to ground in Percy 
Cross Plantation, I got up the next day and rode over 
at 6.15 a.m. to the earth to see that Burrell’s keepers 
had not been “ playing any of their tricks ” with him, 
but “ found the earth open and all serene.” Burrell 
was at this time the shooting tenant of the Kildale 
Estate and not, like his landlord (Major R. B. Turton, 
now joint M.F.H.), a hunting man. 

In December, whilst having some excellent shoot- 
ing at Shotesham at Mr. Robert Fellowes’s (one day 
over eight hundred head), I mention a white-headed 



SPORT AND SPORTSMEN 


137 

gun called Everett, “ who shot with pin-fire guns, slow 
and very sure ” ; also the fact that many of the 
Shotesham pheasants are pure white. 

1 890. — I see that in 1 889 the prices I paid for forage 
were as follows, delivered : 

Best old land hay, one year old, clear of top ^ s. d. 

and bottom per ton 3 10 o 

Best old oats (short) per quarter 160 

Best long oats „ „ i 3 ® 

Good dry wheat straw per ton 200 

In January, I mention that a terrier went into an 
earth after a fox we had run to ground at midday at 
Marske, on Thursday (i6th), and as he had not come 
out the next day they started to dig for him. They dug 
all Friday, and with the help of another terrier dug to 
him till 5 p.m. on Saturday, when he was got out alive 
and well, still laying at the fox a yard farther in. The 
fox also was unhurt and all right. The terrier had 
stuck to his job for fifty-one or fifty-two hours. 

On the 1 8 th we had a punishing run in the Roxby 
country, two very big rings, and finally lost. Now, the 
first ring, uphill and over moors, was so severe that I 
saw “ George Mortimer’s brown, a four-year-old, fall 
and die half-way up the hill.” When Johnny Fetch 
and I with three or four more were going up the same 
hill the second time with only seven-and-a-half couples 
of hounds still sticking to the line, “ they were busy 
skinning Mortimer's horse, and headed our fox, who 
went back to the Birks and beat us in cover.” Moml, 
wait till the hunt is over before you begin skinning 
your hunter ! 

On the 20th, after recounting a hard day, at the end 
of it “ we bolted from Woodwark’s drain, a dirty 

F 



138 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

superannuated, all but toothless old bitch fox, and 
killed her.” Such an old vixen is very rarely handled 
by a huntsman. Hounds seldom get hold of one. They 
live mostly underground, and over a course of years 
some keeper is sure to put them down, for I know that 
many keepers who preserve foxes, quietly put down a 
vixen, and some, if the vixen has cubs, put her down 
and hand-rear the cubs. 

Others than keepers, who would not put a fox down 
(I have known this) when a keeper has opened out the 
earths in the spring in order to have foxes, go and plug 
up the breed earths, sometimes leaving a vixen and 
cubs to die underground. 

But here is another story this month : Mr. 

of y a farmer friendly to sport, sent in a poultry 

claim, but we made the accusation that his son had 
shot our fox on Thursday last. He said he would 
“ clear his son out as he was always shooting something 
he had no business to.” 



Chapter XX 


ABOUT STEEPLECHASES, WILD BIRDS AND 
OTHER MATTERS 

O N March, 29th, 1890, we had our second House 
of Commons Steeplechase at Rugby. I had 
two very good grey Irish mares, one Nora Creina, 
by Lord ^ugh, dam by Arthur, the other Peggy 
Dillon, by Tallavera (by Arthur Wellesley), dam by 
Hercules. I had ridden them for two seasons, and 
for the life of me did not know which was the better, 
though I tried them at top pace against each other. 
Finally I entered Nora Creina for this event. She 
had been a very wild thing when I bought her at five 
years old for changed hands in Ireland 

at £, 1 "], and in 1891 I refused £Soo for her. The 
Rugby race was the only one in which she was ever 
beaten, and she led the field up to the last fence but 
came in second. She really set them an awful pace 
from the first ; Elliot Lees won the race very cleverly 
on Damon ; but the following year Nora left him far 
behind at Daventry over a bigger country. 

At Rugby thirteen M.P.s went to the post, a fairly 
large field, and no one had any idea what horses they 
were up against, but that they were probably as good 
a lot of hunters as ever met in this sort of way. We 
had no idea where the course was, what were the fences 
on it, nor its length. Given these circumstances, I 



140 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

thought my only chance was to set the pace, knowing 
my mare could stand up over any country, in the hope 
of bringing the most dangerous ones down. 

I did this, and certainly several of the best fell at or 
before the water jump, over-jumping themselves. 
After the race, when people were saying what a 
wonderful performance Nora’s had been, “ Bay ” 
Middleton said : “ Yes, she’s a wonder ; she ought 
to have won, but was damned badly ridden." I took 
this to heart and accepted it as truth from an expert, 
pondered it over and altered my tactics — and yet till 
you have ridden a horse in good company you cannot 
know exactly how to ride it, when you do not know the 
distance, nor the effect of weight. 

To get up to the weight of 12 st. I put on heavy 
clothes and saddle, heavy irons, three girths and sur- 
cingle (17I lb.) and had to carry 7 lb. of lead. Lord 
Ernest Hamilton was third in this race on a mare of 
Hermon Hodge’s. 

I was most afraid of Mr. F. B. Mildmay’s Discretion, 
but she fell, when level with me, at the water. There 
is a full account of this meeting in the Field of t h at 
time. 

Personally I think 12 st. the right weight for these 
sort of races and 12 st. 7 lb., the usual minimum, too 
much. For horses accustomed to carry 1 1 st., i st. 7 lb. 
or 12 st., 7 lb. is a big addition to dead weight, and 
often with penalties of 14 lb., too much for good 
horses. 

There was one thing which Bay Middleton and the 
public did not see. I was leading by a field after half 
the journey was done. Before me was a very strong 
bullfinch, in the middle of which appeared to be a gap 



STEEPLECHASES AND WILD BIRDS I4I 

filled with strong new rails. Naturally I went for the 
rails, which were in my line, but to my horror, when 
too late, I saw there was a pond in front of them, 
certainly twelve, probably fifteen feet across. My 
mare jumped the pond, smashed the rails down as she 
landed on them and hardly lost her stride. This let 
in Damon and the rest, who galloped through the 
pond, only two (one being Jarvis, who was hurt) 
facing the bullfinch, which brought them down. 
But for this I think I should have won. 

I dwell on this race as I learnt a lesson how not to 
ride in a real point-to-point. I have seen many make 
my mistake. Jim Tomkinson lost his life by playing 
the same game. In last year’s (1930) Grand National 
I would have, after seeing it, have chosen Glangesia 
as my mount, but he was ridden “ too well ” the first 
three and a half miles, and yet if he had not led so long 
he might have been bowled over in the crush. 

In a crowd one must be at the top or take risks. 
Till there are even weights in the Grand National one 
will never know which is the best horse. I think 
Old Tay Bridge and Silvo about as good as any which 
have run in recent years, but they were not allowed 
to win it. 

In 1890 I attended the Great International Horse 
Show at Berlin and learnt a great deal about German 
and Continental breeds. There were some very 
peculiar breeds, such as the Pinzgauer, circus coloured 
horses, black or dark spotted roans. The whole show 
was badly organized, but the display of artillery and 
other army horses instructive. The European (Aus- 
trian, etc.) Arabs interested me ; many were big tall 
horses with great action, and very attractive carriage 



142 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

horses. This was another example of what man may 
evolve from the Arabian. 

That summer I spent several days with Mr. 
Burdett Courts, M.P., who had a most wonderful 
stud of horses at Holly Lodge. He had at this time 
some of the very best Cleveland, Coaching and Hack- 
ney stallions and mares in the world and bred on a 
big scale and with great success. 

There is nothing to record during November and 
December, 1890, but what is of a purely local character 
— yet, as it is of interest in the North, I wish to note 
that now Clive Dixon begins to show at the front. 
It was, however, after he returned from India with 
his regiment and with some years of campaigning, 
pig-sticking and racing behind him, that he became 
our “ best man.” 

He was one of five who saw the finish of a desperate 
thirty-five minutes on December 6th, which finished 
on the moors. The finish I describe thus : “ a 
parlous, exciting, neck or nothing gallop through 
boulders, bogs and holes at top speed. Phillida (a 
three rising four-year-old mare by Charles the First) 
kept me close up, and after an exhausting spurt 
uphill from Sleddale, Bugler, Gaylass and Freedom 
pulled him down. Bugler is a five-year-old by Hur- 
worth Cromwell, Gaylass by Hurworth Gameboy out 
of our Cobweb, and Freedom by our Pasquin out of 
Flora. I gave the brush to Clive Dixon, who goes 
to India on Monday, and the mask to Tom Ward, and 
took hounds back.” 

The month of January, 1891, saw severe winter 
weather and fogs in the South, and though we escaped 
with clear weather we had a great deal more frost than 



STEEPLECHASES AND WILD BIRDS 143 

we usually get, but I record a few very good days. 
In February my parliamentary duties interfered with 
hunting, but included in them was my introduction 
of a Bill for the Protection of Wild Birds, which 
eventually got into the Statute Book. The amount of 
trouble this measure gave me would hardly be credited, 
but I had the valuable assistance of my friend Sir 
Edward Grey (now Viscount Grey of Falloden) and 
others, and especially of Professor Alfred Newton, 
in drawing up the schedules. 

When I had the Bill drafted it appeared so cum- 
brous and complicated that I took it to Mr. Herbert 
Asquith, who astounded me in the way he dealt with 
it. He just asked me what I “ wanted to do.” He 
then in half an hour drafted an entirely new Bill in 
simple, clear and concise English, divesting it of 
preamble, the legal and technical forms and phrase- 
ology beloved of parliamentary draftsmen, and handed 
me a short Bill which any layman could understand. 
That is the history of the birth of Wild Birds Protec- 
tion. 

I find some of my efforts for guidance as to the 
schedules were not very successful at first, e.g. “ Went 
to see Professor Flower at the Natural History 
Museum. He seemed to know really very little about 
birds and could offer no useful suggestions, but he 
showed me some butterflies and bugs beautifully 
set up I ” 

However, I got some days at home and even put 
in one or two with the Bilsdale. Of one of these I 
say it was a poor one but as amusing as ever. Old 
“ Bobby ” was hunting the hounds, and very slack 
he was, riding his old roan mare. 



144 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

Coulson, of course on foot, asked “ Robert ” if he 
wasn’t gannin’ ti sturr hissel’ a little.” Poor old 
“ Bobby ” said : “ Ah’s leeam [lame] i’ me back ” 
(lumbago, I think). Coulson brutally rejoined : 
“ Thoo’s not sae leeam i’ thy back — thoo’s leeam i’ thy 
heead ! ” 

We ran a fox to ground early in the day and re- 
turned later to see how the foot men were getting on 
at their quarrying for him. They had got within 
sight of the fox in a fissure in the rock, a long way in, 
but no one cared to go in to try to draw him, so I got 
down and worked myself into the crack. It was a 
hard job, and when I got the fox out it was a vixen 
with only three legs and a wire snare on her ! I was 
a bit blown and in a hurry to free her, and she got 
killed by the hounds when I wished to take her 
away. 



Chapter XXI 


DING-DONG POINT-TO-POINT RACES IN 1891 

I N the previous chapter I told of a mishap with a 
vixen. The very next day I had another somewhat 
similar misfortune. I had made a new whin covert 
at Morton with an artificial earth, and being in 
charge that day took hounds down to this new covert. 
At that time I had a terrier, Twig, who ran with 
hounds all day. He went straight to the artificial 
drain, and before you could say “ knife ” the vixen 
bolted right into hounds and was killed, to my mortifi- 
cation and grief. I had just jumped off when the dog 
fox bolted through the hounds and went into a short 
dr ain pipe, and old Twig after him before I could 
stop him. Twig had him out in a minute with half a 
dozen hounds round him. I was determined to save 
this fox, and I threw myself on to both him and the 
terrier. Seizing the fox, which had fast hold of Twig 
through the head, I lifted him out of reach of hounds 
and held them both for fully five minutes this way while 
hounds were got away and someone came to my help to 
get the fox’s mouth open. Twig never made a sound 
the whole time. We gave him a long start, had a fast 
run and lost him in the hills. Old Twig enjoyed all 
this immensely. 

On March 17th, 1891, I give an account of what 
was for me the run of my season of one hour and forty 

F* 



146 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

minutes, from Hob Hill Viaduct via Upleatham, 
Guisbrough, Cass Rock, Guisbrough Moor, Bethel 
Moor, Sleddale, Nor Ings, Sleddale, and killed close 
to the Kildale Road near the Piggeries. Only four of 
us were in the last forty minutes — the late Charles 
Ward Jackson, John P. Petch and Tom Ward, and 
at the end I had the obsequies to myself. I mention 
this run, for it was as exciting as any I ever rode through, 
for on the moors (the last forty minutes) there was 
the densest of fogs, and the hills were covered with 
snow, which lay often in deep drifts, so that we had 
to keep within one hundred yards of racing hounds 
over a terrible country of bogs and gullies and moun- 
tain streams. The same night I was back at my 
parliamentary duties. 

The next day, March i8th, the first Zetland Point- 
to-Point was run from Greystones, a four miles point. 
I did not see it, but have the result. Twenty-two 
runners went to the post, the heavy and light-weights 
in those days being run together. The weights were 
for the light class catch weights over 12 st. 7 lb. 
and for the heavy one catch weights over 14 st. 7 lb. 
Horses not ridden by owners 7 lb. extra. 

Seven Peases rode in this race, which was a fine one. 
The Hon. G. Hamilton Russell on The Nun, and 
Sir W^illiam Eden on Ix)rd Grey (by Victor) were 
level over the last fence, and The Nun, after a ding- 
dong race, collared Lord Grey, who had led the field 
most of the way, and beat him by half a length. 
Captain Sheldon Cradock on Moonlight (by Fairy- 
land) in the heavy class was third past the post, my 
brother, J. A. Pease, fourth (third in light-weight class) 
on Report, Captain Towers Clark’s Chartreuse second. 



POINT-TO-POINT RACES IN 1 89 1 147 

and Mr. C. Hunter’s Woodkwn third in the heavies. 

There are still many living who will remember 
these six fine riders, and the sort of cattle they pos- 
sessed. Yet of the six only my brother survives, 
and of the twenty-two who went to the post I think 
only about half a dozen are now alive. Of the seven 
Peases, three survive — my brother, Mr. Lloyd Pease, 
and Lord Daryngton. 

As Parliamentary Steeplechases are now ancient 
history, I give some account of the third one, which 
is quite one of my best reminiscences. 

Below is an extract from the Press account of the 
race. I may add that Lord Carmarthen rode Bromley 
Davenport’s second string, Delilah. My mare had 
never seen oxers, and when some of us saw the first 
two fences were double oxers we realized that the 
Pytchley gentlemen were giving us an extra big 
sample of their country. 

I really won this race so easily because at the 
turning flag I did turn^ feeling that whatever was next 
ahead, immediately after turning, it had been looked 
at and considered fair, but half the field could not 
believe that we were meant to face a six-foot dense 
thorn fence which obliterated all the country beyond. 

I was leading and wondered what would happen. 
I sent my mare at the thing ; she hung in the top of 
it for appreciable moments, and then dropped seven' 
or eight feet on to the hillside below and beyond the 
beastly thing, and was “ at home ” again. The rest 
was comparatively easy — ^no more oxers, only the 
big brook and thorn fences. Those who shied off 
that fence went far and wide of us, to find a better, 
and were out of it. 



148 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

Damon started favourite at six to four ; Nora’s 
price was two to one, and six to one any other. The 
course was described as “ about three and a half 
miles,” but was judged four miles as ridden without 
flags or indications of the line, except the flags and 
tent on the top of Flecknoe Hill. The time was ten 
minutes eighteen seconds and the going all on sound 
grass, mostly uphill and downhill. I believe Lord 
Henry Bentinck after turning took an extraordinarily 
stiff line home, and his getting in second was a great 
performance. 

I say little about the race in my journal except that 
“just before and after turning the country seemed 
enormous. I never moved hand nor heel, and many 
expressed surprise that there was not a single prick 
on my grey mare after crossing such a country. She 
is a sweet treasure.” 

Extract from a newspaper account : “All were in 
scarlet except Sir Savile Crossley, whose black coat 
was a conspicuous mark amid the brilliant mass of 
colour. . . . When Captain Soames dropped the flag 
they charged the big blackthorn fence almost in line 
abreast, and all disappeared over it except Lord 
Ernest Hamilton, and he was then out of the race. 

“_Up the furrows of the next grass field Nora 
Creina began to make play and was first at the fence, 
which would have stopped all but a brilliant fencer 
and bold rider where Mr. Pease went at it. There 
the thorn twigs looked weaker, and a Pytchley man 
would have known what that meant. 

“ Two yards off on the far side was a stiff ox rail. 
Mr. Pease saw it in time, gave Nora the hint, and the 
beautiful mare flew ovefj blackthorn and oxer in her 



POINT-TO-POINT RACES IN 1 89 1 1 49 

stride. Sir Savile dashed through where the bullfinch 
was high, and Mr. Muntz, who in spite of his weight 
was still in the first flight, led the others over a better 
place. 

“ Galloping well together and flying another thorn 
fence, they followed the grey as she dashed downhill 
for the brook ... all nine got well over and then, 
as they breasted the hill towards Flecknoe Mr. Pease 
for the first time checked Nora Creina’s speed, pulling 
her gently back to her horses. 

“ Then Sir Savile Crossley took up the running for 
several fields, with Mr. Walter Long, Mr. Elliott- 
Lees, Lord Henry Bentinck and Lord Carmarthen 
close upon him, Mr. Muntz cutting out a line by 
himself on the right. The pace now began to tell as 
they neared Goodman’s house and went for the fence 
with the line of scrubby trees that Warwickshire men 
know so well. 

“ ‘ Now, gentlemen, ride your boldest ! There is 
an oxer to you, and hidden behind the frowning 
blackthorn a broad ditch to catch you if your horse 
does not jump big enough.’ Sir Savile, first at it, 
comes down at that trap, and the rest get safely over. 
All three heavyweights are well up, and not to be 
stalled off yet by the pace. 

“ Quickest round the flags, Nora Creina dashes 
once more to the front, but now the favourite Damon 
(Mr. Elliott-Lees’) begins to look dangerous. Down 
a steep ridge and furrow come the cluster of five 
racing hard for the brook. Nora knows it is there. 
Her ears are forward, her broad nostrils quivering, 
her head well up, and every muscle strained for the 
leap. Light as a deer, she bounds over where the banks 



1 50 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

are wide apart, but strongly bound by the roots of an 
old thorn tree. 

“ Mr. Walter Long, Lord Henry and Muntz ride 
at another spot, and Elliott-Lees, still farther to the 
left, rides where the landing bank is hollow. Damon 
drops a hind leg on a rotten place ; recovers, but 
throws his rider. . . . Muntz gets over, but at the 
next fence (uphill) the pace has told and Landmark 
falls heavily. 

“ Now Pease, well ahead, jumps into the third field 
from home, where the rolls of ridge and furrow tax 
Nora’s powers. Looking over his shoulder, and 
seeing only Mr. Long with him in the same field, he 
gives the mare a pull so that she strides lightly from 
wave to wave. Mr. Long makes an effort to catch 
her and takes a little too much out of his horse. 

“ Nora Creina is still fencing brilliantly, and no- 
thing but a fall can now lose her the race. Over the 
last fence she lands as firmly as if fresh from the stable, 
and canters in an easy winner by forty lengths, having 
covered the three and a half miles of stiffly-fenced 
country in ten minutes and eighteen seconds. Lord 
Henry and Mr. Long jump into the last field within 
a stride of each other, and then ensues an exciting race 
home between these heavyweights. Lord Henry just 
getting first by a head as they pass the post.” 

I was staying at Althorp for this race, and was alone 
there over the subsequent week-end with Lord 
Spencer (“ The Red Earl ”). I say : “ I enjoy 
everything here, the wonderful library, the pictures, 
the heronry, the deer and Highland cattle, but he is 
the best thing about the place. I love him very much. 
I do not know another m'an so much a man and yet so 



POINT-TO-POINT RACES INI89I I^I 

gentle, simple and true. He mounted me, and I had 
a nice day with his hounds.” 

On Monday, April 6th, we had a remarkably busy 
day, for the Cleveland hunted that morning at nine, 
and had the run of the season, finding at Skelton, 
running to Baysdale, and killing at Ingleby. They 
did all that before our point-to-point races at 2.30 p.m., 
at Redcar. 

I missed most of the run through following Ben, 
the whipper-in. His horse slung a stone with his hind 
foot into my right eye with such force that I was 
knocked off my saddle and for some hours was quite 
blind in that eye. I found a horse trough in which I 
was able to bathe the damaged eye and managed to 
get to Redcar, and to ride and win the Cleveland 
Members’ race. 

There were fifteen runners in it, and I should think 
it was the most peculiar course ever selected. This 
was the first point-to-point we ever had. The course 
was from Old Eston to Kirkleatham and ended at the 
grand stand on the Redcar Racecourse. 

After going about five miles we had five furlongs 
on the flat on the Redcar Racecourse I I won on a 
four-year-old mare, bred by Lord Battersea, called 
Phillida ; Mr. Harry Bolckow, on Wisdom, was 
second in the Lightweights, and Mr. D. Stubbs, on 
Jerry, third in that class ; but my brother, on Catgut, 
was leading at the last fence (a good water jump), and 
though I soon had him settled on the flat he won in 
the heavy class and was second past the post. He was 
the only heavy who survived this very punishing, if 
not cruel, race (over a heavy plough country the first 
three miles). My brother’s performance on Catgut, 



HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


152 

carrying two stones more than I did, was, I should 
say, the best of all. 

It seemed endless, but in a race like that there is 
time to “ make good ” any mistakes. Early on, my 
mare, which was a “ flier,” and jumped literally like 
a stag, often hitting my boot soles with her forefeet 
— took such a fly at a fence into “ Meggitt’s Lane ” 
that she jumped the whole lane and came down in the 
fence on the far side. She was up so quick however 
that I had not time to go over her head but was thrown 
back into my seat. I saw others down who finished 
respectably. 

The farmers rode the same country, and a wonderful 
weight-carrying mare. Marigold, which was a roarer, 
won ; her rider, Mr. Thomas Fetch, jun., winning by 
“ eye for the country,” got home on the flat fifty 
lengths in front of Thomas Dale’s Palm Sunday. 
There were seventeen runners in her class. 

This shows what could be done by a slow, clever 
animal, ridden by a man with a good head and eye in 
the old true point-to-point races — ^which gave every 
hunter a chance. Ten years after I went to a London 
oculist, who said : “You have had your eye injured 
by a blow some time — ^it shows a bad scar.” For- 
getting the accident of 1891, I assured him that I had 
had no such thing, but he was positive. Days after I 
remembered, and found that I had told him a lie I 

I have often been asked who was considered the 
best man across country on a horse in the later Vic- 
torian period. It is a question I think no one can 
answer, but there could not be a better horseman 
than “ The Cat,” John Maunsell Richardson. He 
had the old perfect long seat, perfect hands and a 



POINT-TO-POINT RACIS IN 1 89 1 I53 

perfect understanding of horses. He was in his prime 
(thirty to thirty-five years old) during my Cambridge 
days, and won the Grand National Hunt Steeplechase 
at Cottenham, at that time a very big natural course 
with quite a diiferent class of jumps to the Grand 
National. 

Several of the natural thorn fences were as wide as 
the Aintree ones ; there was also a double post and 
rails, and sixteen feet of water beyond the next natural 
fence, but there was a fence, innocent to look at, at 
the last corner at which I have seen more grief than 
at any other. Instead of a ditch at the take-off side 
there was a wide hollow, and woe to the horse that did 
not take off before he reached it. 

Having ridden this course myself in the ’seventies, 
I can say it was the best racing test for real hunters, 
and I regret that the National Hunt Steeplechases 
came to an end, for although the Grand National is 
the most wonderful steeplechase of all, it is entirely 
artificial, both as to terrain and fences, whereas 
Cottenham was a real natural course, except the water 
jump. 

But “ The Cat ” could ride, and generally win, over 
any course. He rode the winners of the Grand 
National two years in succession, 1873 
won every great steeplechase. He could beat jockeys 
like John Osborne and Cannon on the flat, could and 
did hunt hounds, and was the best judge of hunters 
in the show ring I have ever seen. 

No doubt if you can afford to ride the best horses 
it is a great advantage, but few know which will 
become the best, and in many cases he made the raw 
material into the best possible. There were other 



HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


154 

great amateur riders at this time whose names will 
live, but I doubt if anyone ever surpassed “ Cat ” 
Richardson in the combination of head, eye and 
hands in every high test of riding and knowledge of 
horseflesh. 



Chapter XXII 


AFTER IBEX AND IZARD IN THE PYRENEES, 

1891 

S OME years before this one (1891) I had been 
with a family party in the Pyrenees and had gone 
up from St. Sauveur to Gavarnie to try and get an 
izard (chamois). Having no rifle and finding no 
native who possessed one, I had borrowed an old gun 
from a noted guide, Celestin Passet. After practising 
with it with ball at a mark and finding that I could 
hit it about once in three times at one hundred yards, 
I went after izard in the Val d’Ossoue. 

I missed the only time I got within one hundred and 
thirty yards of some, and abandoned this chase with 
the intention of returning some day better equipped. 
Passet and others whetted my appetite with accounts 
of the bears, izards and bouquetins obtainable on the 
Spanish side. 

On returning to England I found that the “ other 
side ” was already known to Sir Victor Brooke and to 
my cousins, the Edward North Buxtons. What they 
succeeded in accomplishing is related in Buxton’s 
Short Stalks. Having gathered such information as 
I required I persuaded my brother and Mr. A. E. 
Leatham to come with me in May, 1891, and to 
attempt what is perhaps the most difficult task that 
any hunter can set himself, to secure specimens of the 



156 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

Pyrenean Ibex in their last and most -wonderful 
habitat. 

My wife and sister were of the party, and we also 
took with us our Scotch keeper (Lundie) who was 
destined to have the most terrifying and bewildering 
experiences of his life. We set out in May, sending 
Lundie ahead of us labelled with his destination, and 
carrying his instructions in French and English. 
He got lost on his journey, but by an amazing chance 
our express happened to pull up at Dax, north of 
Bordeaux, and there my brother saw in a train, in a 
siding, bound for Paris, the opposite direction to ours, 
no other than James Lundie. We had just time to 
pull him out and stuff him into our compartment. 
Where he had been travelling the preceding days, 
and whither he was going he had not the faintest idea. 
He was longing for porridge and tea ! 

Many years before he had been recommended to 
my father by Mr. Fogo, the Invercauld factor, but 
said Fogo, “ he’s a man with very peculiarr reeligious 
opeenions.” “ How so ? ” said my father. “ Wull, 
Sir Joseph, he’s one of these persons which are called 
Teetotalerrs.” 

Poor Lundie on the Spanish side, after great 
physical and mental strain on giddy precipices, used 
to suffer intensely from thirst. He fell from grace, 
and was glad to share with us “ the drunkard’s drink ” 
of Spanish wine. To his indignation we photographed 
him asleep with an empty bottle beside him to remind 
him of his lapses. 

The valley we hunted in, the Val d’Arras, is without 
a rival for the stupendous magnificence of its walls, 
the unsurpassed beauty of its colouring, the splendour 



IBEX AND IZARD 


157 

of its forests, the loveliness of its flowers and the 
terrifying grandeur of its cliffs and pinnacles. There 
is nothing more glorious in the world, though I am 
told there are valleys in Cashmere that might almost 
compete with it. 

It is the last refuge of the Buchardo or Capra 
pyrenaica. This ibex survives in the impregnable 
and inaccessible places or in dense scrub on the 
steepest sides of the mountainous cliffs. To gain a 
sight of them requires great physical exertion and 
nerve. 

An experienced alpinist, like the late Edward North 
Buxton, said that if you can get to ibex in the Val 
d’Arras you can do anything there is to do in Switzer- 
land. 

I had a pretty “ good head,” but I must say I have 
never before or since walked so close to or so often 
with death as in this valley, or been in such dangerous 
places. I have had considerable experience of stalking 
chamois, but that is child’s play compared with 
hunting the bouquetin. 

One frequent passage to the higher and most likely 
ground and to the snow line of Mont Perdu was three 
miles along a corniche of the narrowest description, 
with no place to put your hand. Sometimes it was a 
foot wide, sometimes three to four feet, never level, 
and seamed with couloirs, chimneys and gullies which 
you had to spring across, and ail ^is along a cliff that 
went sheer down three thousand feet ta the valley 
below and rose above you sheer up to about an equal 
height. 

My brother-in-law, the late Gerald Buxton, one 
of the most intrepid and determined of men, could 



1^8 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

not Stand the strain of this terrible journey and did 
most of it on his hands and knees ! His father devised 
a shorter agony by discovering that if only you could 
cross the flat face of one great cliff you could save 
yourself several miles of terror, and he employed 
Spaniards to drive in two rows of iron pegs across the 
face, one row for your hands and one for your feet. 
This was done by a Spaniard, a mason, of Torla, who 
was let down with ropes and placed the pegs, and 
triumphantly made “ La Scala Buxton.” Having done 
both journeys I consider them equally terrifying, but 
Buxton’s route saved hours of time. 

I never got a shot at ibex, but we did secure two 
specimens, one of which is in the Dorman Museum 
at Middlesbrough, and Leatham got another, but I 
shot some izards. One day I got a right and left. 
The first fell some three thousand feet and it took all 
day to reach it. It was like a lump of red currant 
jelly and hair, but strange to say the horns and top of 
the skull were not smashed. 

We never saw a bear, but there were tracks and 
signs of their presence. The black squirrels, the 
raptores, and other birds were a source of continual 
interest, whilst the flowers, snow white daffodils, and 
rock plants were an unceasing delight. In one place 
I counted twenty kinds of stone crop, also irises 
anemones, hepaticas and narcissus. 

On May 22nd I give an account of a perilous 
morning, and then say, having seen no ibex : “ We 
spied izard, and Jack (my brother) was sent ofi^ with 
Tresgarges after them in the direction of La Casque. 
We were all on the tops (Leatham, Vincente, Passet 
and myself) and it was bitterly cold in the snow, and 



IBEX AND IZARD 


159 

Ted and I were nearly frozen. Then a snowstorm 
came on and a thick mist, and we decided to get down 
while it was possible. With the mist, snow, ' and 
drifts we found that neither Passet nor Vincente knew 
how to get down. 

“ We went on to gigantic snow wreaths which 
projected far beyond the cliff tops, and peered over 
these awful edges, but could not find a way. At last 
I heard Passet say there must be a way down a certain 
precipice for a reason which struck terror into Ted’s 
heart and mine. ‘ Parceque j’ai vue les izards monter 
par Ik ! ’ We doubted then if any more would be 
heard of us. 

“ We reached a most awful chimney on a cliff 
thousands of feet high and had to drop from rock or 
terrace, and usually alighted or fell on loose stones — 
snow falling and the ravines all bottomless abysses in 
the mist. We at last did reach the horrible corniche, 
which was covered with snow, and where it was almost 
impossible not to slip, yet one slip and it was certain 
death. Our alpen stocks and the men’s help saved us. 

“ At last we reached the Salerous passage, which, 
whatever we thought of it at other times, was like 
being in paradise after what we had gone through. 
At night we thought we would do no more, but this 
had often been the case and the next day we were after 
ibex again. 

“ I saw one male and could have shot at four 
hundred yards, but as it went down to where I had 
left Lundie with a Paradox gun, I left it alone and he 
got it. This day I was posted for many hours on a 
projecting rock on the cliff face and when the drive 
was over it was a quarter of an hour before I dared to 



l6o HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

get on to my feet from my knees. It was a wonderful 
sight to see the giant Bernhard carry this very heavy 
four-year-old ibex on his back down the most awful 
places.” 

There was another valley adjoining called the Val 
de Niscel, but we never found a way into it, yet it 
looked very likely for ibex and bear. I never heard 
of anyone getting into it to see. 

Leatham, whose feet were substantial and who wore 
large boots in places where the Spaniards took off their 
light spadris or sandals, frightened us on more than 
one occasion — “ once in a horrid place he had followed 
us and sprung across a couloir to a small ledge pro- 
jecting from the cliff face from which there was 
just foot-room to hitch yourself across another couloir 
on to a cornice. Leatham got on to this ledge, but 
could not face the second jump. A Spaniard at last 
unwound his cummerbund and jumping lightly on the 
very edge of the ledge, tied one end to him, and throw- 
ing the other to Passet and another, held him to the 
rock and gave him confidence to spring. But we did 
not return by that road, much to my own secret relief. 
I can manage dry rock work, but my nerve gets shaky 
on ice and frozen snow slopes.” 

An extract from my notes reads as follows : “ Seen 
some ibex each day, but even these Spanish human 
cats cannot reach the places where they crouch or lie. 
There is nothing much more wonderful than to see 
Celestin come down four or five thousand feet. He 
leaps and runs and pulls himself up on the brink of 
eternity a score of times, just by laying himself back 
on his alpen stock, and as far as I can see does it just 
pmr s'amuser'' 



IBEX AND IZARD 


l6l 

Whilst the French have allowed the Pyrenean ibex 
to be exterminated and permit wholesale evasion of 
such game laws as they have, the Spanish Government 
have now given absolute protection to this the rarest 
and most interesting member of the ibex family in his 
last refuge and mighty stronghold. The difficulty of 
getting a shot at this ibex may be realized when I 
mention that Mr. Edward North Buxton made four 
expeditions before he got his first male. 



Chapter XXIII 


AFTER MARAL IN ASIA MINOR, 1891 

T his autumn saw my last time with the grouse 
on our own shootings in Aberdeenshire. The 
weather was continually bad, but it must have been a 
fairly good grouse year, for five guns “ dogging,” and 
often only three guns driving, on twenty-four days to 
get 3088 grouse and 468 head of other game. I went 
one day to pay a last visit to old Thompson, who had 
been our stalker and was nearing the end of his days. 
He was very much attached to us, but was a very 
tiresome and tyrannical servant with his own code of 
fixed stalking rules, yet a fine character. 

I write : “I went up the familiar pathway to his 
cottage at Dougleish — ^he cannot now get about. We 
talked over our memories of stalks, shots and big 
stags. On my leaving him he said in a very deliberate 
way, ‘ Wull ! I hev a suspeesion that I’ll never see 
you again — good-bye;’ I attempted to say something 
more cheerful, but he repeated his ‘ suspeesion ’ that 
we should never meet again ‘ this side of the Reever ’ — 
and his suspicion was right.” 

In September and October of this year (1891), I 
went with the late Edward North Buxton into the 
interior of Asia Minor. In his Short Stalks there is 
some account of this expedition, to which I contributed 
' some pages. I could write a book on what we saw 



AFTER MARAL 


163 

and did, apart from sport, during our travels into what 
was then a difficult country to penetrate into, but I 
do not intend to dwell long on any of our experiences. 

It was the first of several expeditions I made with 
this remarkable man, and my very dear friend. Few 
others ever went twice with him, for at this time in his 
life he worked at high pressure and to a time-table, was 
oblivious to dangers of every description, indifferent 
to comfort and fatigue, and the greater the obstacles 
he met with the more obstinate was his determination. 

The previous year he had gone into Asia Minor as 
far as the Ak Dagh with Mr. Findlay, of the British 
Embassy at Constantinople, who had special facilities 
for getting into that country. Findlay had suc- 
ceeded in obtaining a fine Maral stag, and his head was 
believed to be the only Asia Minor one ever brought 
to England. 

Buxton was determined to explore other ranges, no 
matter what objections the Turlash authorities raised, 
and was quite unaffected by stories of captures by 
brigands and atrocities perpetrated on their victims. 
Buxton firmly held the view that one, and not the 
least, of the purposes for which the British Diplomatic 
and Consular Services and Colonial and Military 
Governors existed was to assist him personally to 
obtain any coveted trophy or curious animal upon 
which he had set his heart. Some were charmed, some 
amazed at his presumption, but I am bound to say he 
invariably convinced them that his view of their 
functions should be acted upon. 

The one occasion upon which he failed was fifteen 
years later, when I accompanied him and his daughter, 
Miss Theresa Buxton, to the Sudan, with the intention 



164 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

of getting the addax, south-west of the Dongola Nile 
bend. He had roped in all but Lord Cromer, and our 
arms and equipment were already at Dongola. 

After being kindly entertained by Lord Cromer, 
the latter tackled Buxton and pointed out that he 
would not allow the whole of the Egyptian and Sudan 
services to be occupied in Buxton’s arrangements for 
a difficult and dangerous journey, and that as the 
chances were even in the then state of that region that 
we should not return (in which event there would be 
more bother) he vetoed our trip. 

So we turned our attention to getting Mrs. Gray’s 
waterbuck {Cobus Maria Gray) up the Bahr el Ghazal. 
That was in 1906. 

During my 1891 Asia Minor trip with Edward 
North Buxton I thought it was quite wonderful how 
he got the British Consul, Holmwood, the Vice- 
Consul, Wrattislaw, and the leading English family 
of Whitall at Smyrna to help him. Nothing could 
have exceeded their kindness. At this time the interior 
of Asia Minor was infested with bandits and to get in 
with rifles all but impossible, but with the help of the 
Whitalls we secured the services of the most notorious 
ex-bandit chief of the day, as our guide and protector, 
but at his own price. 

He was known far and wide as “ Bouba.” I 
extracted his history from him and give it in the laconic 
account of my diary as a veracious account of how 
brigands are made and unmade. 

“ Bouba in his youth lived at Nimphi. He got into 
bad company and drank ‘ mastick.’ About thirteen 
years ago he killed a man in a quarrel over a ‘ public 
woman,’ fled to Brousa, and to escape the law joined 



AFTER MARAL 


165 

a band of brigands and took to the mountains. The 
gang lived by ambushing the Government post and 
often took bullion and the pay destined for the troops. 

“ His band in the first period was eight, in the 
second twenty, and in the last five ; he was a ‘joint 
captain,’ He never took life except when attacked by 
troops, but on one occasion his band killed thirty-six 
soldiers. On this day Bouba was shot in the thigh, 
and hence his chronic lameness. As a rule, they 
killed any wounded member of their own band, and 
cut his head off and carried it away to prevent identifica- 
tion. The country people kept them in provisions 
and the merchants in Martini rifles and ammunition. 
Thus these purchased full immunity. 

“ They only once took a European, the son of a 
Frenchman at Ashkehehr who had refused to send 
them £ (T.) 500 when written to. He then paid it 
and his son was restored. When Bouba ‘ came in ’ 
and surrendered to the authorities on a free pardon he 
had only forty-five pounds after eight years of looting.” 

Bouba certainly secured safety for us and even 
kindness in all the country districts we traversed, and 
though we were told the inhabitants of the towns who 
had never seen Exiropeans were dangerously fanatical, 
we had few disagreeable experiences beyond being 
spat at and stoned in a few places. 

We were not very successful and did not get one 
good maral and only a few head of other big game, 
but I learnt a great deal of how not to do things. I 
bowled over two magnificent stags in the Ak Dagh 
and lost them both, but never had a shot in the Emir 
and Han Dagh. Over one of these two stags I learnt 
a lesson. I shot him trotting through trees at seventy 



i66 


HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


yards, an enormous stag with some sixteen or seventeen 
big points. He went on to his back and lay with his 
feet in the air, and I thought he was dead. I put my 
rifle against a rock, ten yards from the stag, and was 
about to take hold of a leg when up he sprang and 
disappeared into a thickly timbered ravine. I followed 
him for two days in vain. 

One other incident I may relate, as I have seen the 
question raised lately as to whether eagles ever attack 
adults. One day I was posted under a rock on a high 
peak above the timber line, and my Yuruk hunter had 
gone to see whether he could “ move ” any deer, if 
they were on the other side, on the chance of their 
passing Buxton or me. 

There were a pair of the great black eagles in sight, 
and we often saw them with many others of the larger 
raptores in these mountains. One of them spotted me 
and came circling to inspect the strange object. He 
circled a few times round me within ten yards and 
looked, I thought, uncommonly hungry as he moved 
his head from side to side, but I was, at first, more 
interested than anything else in watching him, being 
confident that I had only to move and he would clear 
ofiF. But not a bit of it. When I raised my arm he 
made two or three circles high above my head and then 
swooped down with a lightning swish within a foot or 
two of my head. I then stood up and waved my rifle 
at him, but he repeated his attack. I realized I could 
not hit him if I shot and that to fire was to spoil the 
chance of a stag, also that if the bird laid hold of my 
face or neck in one of these lightning swoops it wovdd 
be very nasty. 

I felt puzzled and found the position ludicrous of 



AFTER MARAL 


167 

being frightened by a “ big bird.” I danced a sort of 
demoniacal hornpipe and swung my rifle about, 
shouting. He had a good look at me from six feet, 
swinging round me, and then sheered ofi^ to the white 
precipices above me. My Yuruk hunter, Achmet 
Tchaus, was a fine specimen, but, as evidence of the 
difiiculty in getting these big stags, he told me he had 
hunted this mountain for years and had never got a 
stag and only three hinds. 

There were numerous bears here, of which he had 
shot two or three. The wild boar is common, though 
we only shot one or two, and I saw a niunber of Cafra 
agagrus in the Mimoun Dagh and shot one there. I 
was very ill with fever the day I got it, and believe 
I killed a very fine male the same day, but was in that 
state when nothing matters and I did not even look 
for it. My diary has a very full description of the 
larger fauna of Asia Minor and where the various 
species were still to be found in 1891. 

And now I come to the things I learnt not to do. 
Buxton, to ensure success, took a Norwegian elkdog 
with us, also two Pyrenean hunters. This dog Smoke 
spoilt Buxton’s best chance, and was a nuisance in 
other ways. He could not be booked further than 
Dover on our way out to Brindisi, and at Calais Buxton 
gave up our registered baggage ticket to Brindisi 
instead of Smoke’s exhausted one. The latter he 
presented at Brindisi as his baggage ticket, much to the 
amazement of the Italians and. of himself at its useless- 
ness. 

Buxton had three weapons with him, two single 
shot Martini-Heiuy rifles and a Paradox gun, and two 
cleaning rods. Both the latter he allowed the Pyreneans 



i68 


HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


to use as whips, and they smashed them to pieces on 
their horses ! He had invented an enormous holster 
into which he thrust, muzzle downwards, one of his 
rifles, his deer glass, water bottle, a Kodak, an umbrella, 
and sundries. The first time his horse stumbled this 
rifle was broken in two at the grip. It was replaced 
by the Paradox, and the next time Buxton’s mount 
pecked among the rocks the foresight was knocked off 
and lost. In our first camp Buxton lost the breech 
block of his remaining rifle and declared our expedition 
at an end ! However, with the help of old dirty Yani, 
our cook, I managed during a whole night of splicing 
and wiring to mend the rifle which was broken, and it 
stood the trip. 

The cooking vessels of our canteen were specially 
designed by Buxton with adjustable handles to 
economize space in packing. These handles were 
used by our camp followers as weapons, pokers, 
toasting forks, spits, digging tools and hammers, and 
disappeared one by one, and our kettle spout and 
handle were soldered, instead of being riveted on, 
and melted off in the first camp. 

We had no camp beds or comfort of any kind, and 
he insisted on forced marches from dawn till nine at 
night over the scorching plains of the interior to save 
time, and we spent each night in the filthiest guest 
chamber of the awful odas of the towns and villages. 
On these vermin-infested floors we flung ourselves 
down with our men in our clothes, too exhausted to 
cook a meal, and would be on the road again before 
6 a.m. Buxton wore rough Scotch tweeds and woollen 
stockings in this roasting climate and got raw with 
riding some fourteen or fifteen hours a day. He must 



AFTER MARAL 


169 

have suffered agonies, but on we went, though in the 
final stages of this awful march he had to be carried in 
an araba, w’hich was only a change of torture. 

If I could be young again and revisit Asia Minor, 
I should plan to be in the mountains in July and get 
bears and collect .■ ther things such as fallow bucks, 
and take my time over the stags in September and 
October. These deer I consider are a variant from 
the Maral or Caucasian deer, and are different to the 
Carpathian and Crimean, but have been classed as 
“ Maral ” no doubt with good reason. I never heard 
them called “ Maral ” until long after 1891, but always 
“ Soghun,” or “ Dineir.” 

I killed a hind that had a face eighteen inches long. 
She stood about thirteen hands high, and must have 
weighed forty stone. We gave Selous all our informa- 
tion, and he had to make two expeditions before he 
got one. The Whitalls, and I think Mr. George 
Barker, obtained some good ones, but I have not heard 
of one being shot for many years. 

Asia Minor is a really good field for the naturalist, 
and for the antiquarian, but I recommend those who 
travel there to take their time over it, to carry their 
rifles on their backs, to camp and avoid odas, and 
adjustable handles, and elkhounds, and to do without 
Pyrenean hunters. 


c 



Chapter XXIV 


EXTRAORDINARY CROPPERS AND NOTES 
IN 1891-92 

I RETURNED from Asia Minor in time to enjoy 
the greater part of the remarkably good hunting 
season, 1891—92. The most noteworthy thing about 
the many good runs I record with the Cleveland and 
neighbouring packs is the amount of “ grief.” The 
croppers among the hard riders were not only fre- 
quent, but severe, and I had my share of falls, and was 
hurt in two of them, but the most singular fall I had 
was when not hunting. 

I was riding up a very steep bracken-covered hill 
with my reins slack, when my mare started and 
whipped round at a blackbird or ring ousel. I clutched 
the near rein to bring her back, when she reared and 
struck the slack off-reins with her forefoot, and not 
only broke them, but tore the whole bridle off her 
head, and away she went full bat down the precipitous 
slope. Anticipating a regular smash before or at the 
bottom, where there was a deep bog, I leant forward 
to grasp her nose, but she unseated me and dragged 
me a considerable distance through the wet bracken 
at full gallop. However, my foot got free, and I was 
none the worse, but it took eight hours to catch my 
mare 1 

Another curious fall I had some years after was on 



CROPPERS AND NOTES I71 

my way to a meet. I was putting the hook of a gate 
back into the eye on the post after coming through, 
and my horse was impatient. The hook dropped into 
the hole, above the buttons of my strong glove on my 
right hand, and the horse sheered back and pulled 
me out of the saddle ; but as my left foot was fast in 
the stirrup I eventually was suspended horizontally to 
the utmost stretch by a foot and a hand between my 
horse and the gate. I wondered how many joints 
would be dislocated, and what would give way first. 
Luckily the hook ripped up my glove, and I fell and 
my stirrup leather came out ; but I must have been 
an extraordinary sight. 

I once saw the late Jock Clarke thrown over his 
horse’s head with both feet remaining fast in his 
stirrups. Somehow he turned and had hold of the bit 
with both hands so that he had his face looking into 
his horse’s mouth. The horse galloped round a field 
with Clarke in this extraordinary position, but as he 
was a good weight it told on the horse’s head, and he 
came to a stand, when, help being handy, Clarke was 
freed snorting and swearing “ something fearful.” 

The most terrific cropper I ever saw without serious 
results was about fifty years ago in a remarkably good 
run from Eston Banks across the vale to Roseberry 
Topping, over the top of that high peak, and to ground 
at the Powder Magazine, Nunthorpe, after another 
fast four miles over the low country. 

There was a man out, a stranger to me, on a roan 
horse ; I think he came out from Mid^esbrough. 
I was hurrying down Roseberry by a steep track called. 
Cat Trod and saw this man’s horse run away with him 
high up on the hill and take him at racing pace down 



172 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

the mountain to the precipitous escarpment below, 
called Cockle Scar. 

Over the clifF they went. The first twenty feet was 
a fall in the air. The man and horse parted at the 
first bump, then both rolled and somersaulted, over and 
over, to the bottom of the Scar, and the horse rolled 
over the lower slopes beyond the cliff bottom. I was 
certain they were both killed, but to my amazement 
the man got on to his feet and went down to his horse. 

As I got to them the horse, too, got on to his legs. 

He had not a broken bone, though he had scores of 
cuts and scratches and had more hair scraped off him 
than left on. The man said he- was “ All right,” so I 
continued the chase. I never saw either out again, 
and if a cropper could knock the love of hunting out 
of a man that one should have done the trick. It was 
the most extraordinary escape from death I ever saw, 
and really an awful thing to look on at. 

On December 31st, 1891, there was a great hunt 
which ended very curiously. Hounds ran their fox 
to the high cliffs of the coast east of Saltburn and were 
stopped on the brink. The fox got down the cliffs, 
swam out to an island rock and sat down there. The 
tide being high and up to the bottom of the cliffs, 
which were about three hundred feet high at this 
point, hounds could not be taken round by the shore. 
Whether the fox waited until the tide ebbed or whether 
he swam back to the cliffs no one knows as night came 
on, but the old customer saved his brush cleverly and 
deserved his life. 

A month later another or the same fox took us to 
the same cliffs (on January 27th, 1 8 92), and one hound 
went over after him and was killed. 



CROPPERS AND NOTES 173 

I gather that this season we had no harder riders 
than the brothers Charlie and Ralphie Ward-Jackson 
of Normanby Hall, and amongst the farmers than 
Willie Scarth and Tom Ward. The former, brave 
brothers, alas ! are no more ; the two latter after a 
lifetime “ in the van ” still “ like to be there.” 

Charlie Ward-Jackson’s falls at big places I mention 
sometimes, but usually make a general comment : 
“ Here Charlie took his daily cropper.” On January 
2nd, 1892, relating a “ rattling run of one hour and 
ten minutes over a grand big country with the Hur- 
worth in the Northallerton district, I say ‘ Charlie 
and Ralphie went A i .’ ” 

In April this year when staying at Aston Clinton 
I spent a day at Leighton and saw Mr. Leopold 
Rothschild’s bloodstock. The sires there then in- 
cluded Morglay, Brag, Lactantius, Roswell and Trent. 
I call Lactantius a beautiful little horse, Morglay 
beautiful to look at, I don’t like Brag’s short shoulders, 
but say he is a wonder of strength and faultless in 
appearance otherwise. 

Another day I spent was at Lord Rothschild’s at 
Tring, and he showed me his horses, his wonderful 
Jerseys, also his emus, which last were answerable 
for the famous letter from his man which informed 
him, “ One of the emus has laid an egg, and in your 
lordship’s absence I have got the biggest goose in the 
parish to sit on it.” 



Chapter XXV 


SPORT IN ALGERIA, 1892-95 

A fter just a taste of cubhunting, September, 
1892, found my wife and myself at Algiers, she 
having been ordered abroad for the winter. The 
French doctor there ordered us into the desert, and we 
reached Biskra in October. Biskra was then less 
accessible and little known to English travellers, but 
the railway had already got there. A little book I 
published on Biskra and the oases of the Zibans in 
1893 did much to advertise this place, and some of 
the information I gave was incorporated by Sir 
Lambert Playfair in Murray’s Algeria. 

I set myself to find out what sport could be obtained, 
and bought some capital Barb mares in the Batna 
market, collected two or three good “ Sloughis ” for 
coursing desert hares and jackals, soon discovered the 
best parts of the desert for gazelle, and the likeliest 
mountains for Barbary wild sheep {Ovis lervia), and 
the mountain Admi antelope {Gazella cuvieri). 

Algeria and Tunisia are countries where to obtain 
sport you have to face real hard work, and need a great 
store of patience and resource. My ambitions at this 
time were to get lions, bubal, red deer, and panthers. 
I failed in all these attempts, although none of these 
species was then quite extinct. 

Panthers and lions in very small numbers probably 



SPORT IN ALGERIA 


175 

exist to this day. The red deer certainly persist in a 
limited area of Tunisia, and I do not believe the bubal 
is totally exterminated in the Hamada south of Oran, 
and in Morocco. In those days there were all sorts of 
rumours about animals and where they might be 
found, and no reliable information obtainable ; so 
that it took me years to discover where these animals 
were not to be found and the true facts. 

It was asserted that there were bears in the Atlas 
Range, but though undoubtedly they were there 
formerly, I have never been able to hear of one being 
killed since Crowther obtained one in 1841 in the 
Western Atlas. 

Having seen the Algerian panther, both when young 
and in the flesh, and his tracks, and being familiar 
with the Central and Southern African leopards, which 
vary greatly in size, I am one of those who entirely 
disagree with the scientific authorities who class all 
leopards and panthers as one species. I have seen 
Algerian panther skins fully as large as the largest lion 
skins, and always grey in general colouration, totally 
different to African leopards and Asiatic “ panthers.” 
I took photographs of a baby panther caught in the 
Djudjura Mountains which was almost as big as a 
leopard and with limbs as heavy as a lion’s. 

The buffalo still survives in the marsh districts of 
Bizerta in Tunisia and the red deer in the Southern 
Tunisian forests. I have only seen one hind, but I 
came across moderate stags’ antlers in the hands of the 
native Arabs. 

The only widely spread big game (excluding such 
animals as hyaenas, jackals, foxes, etc.) in Algeria 
and Tunisia are wild boar and leopards in the forests 



176 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

and mountains, wild sheep in the whole southern face of 
the Atlas Range, and the mountain and desert gazelles. 

I soon gave up shooting with a scatter gun except 
for the pot or when the quail were “ in ” in the spring, 
for it was “ much cry and little wool ” as a rule. The 
quail were never fat and the shooting easy and 
monotonous. In the barley fields in good years 
you could get from fifty to one hundred in half a day 
to your own gun. 

The small bustard or houbara of North Africa 
afforded me amusement in the northern desert, as they 
are difficult of approach except by circling round 
them on horseback and shooting them from the 
saddle. I never got more than three in a day. I have 
gone out with the Arab falconers after them, and after 
hares, but with no great success. I used to think it a 
good day if I got two or three courses after hares and 
jackals with my greyhounds, for hares are difficult to 
find in the desert. 

I became, however, an adept at shooting gazelle from 
the saddle at full gallop, an art which came in useful 
in other parts of Africa in later years with other species 
of antelope. The Dorcas gazelles were very numerous 
everywhere in the northern parts of the Sahara, and 
further south were quantities of the Rime {Gazella 
lodert) as well as Dorcas. 

The stalking of a good male of either species is no 
easy matter. He is not a big target at one hundred 
and fifty yards, and you are lucky to find cover to get 
within that range. My favourite hunting ground 
for gazelle was between Sidi Okba and Zeribet 
el Oued, where herds of gazelle up to and over one 
hundred^ strong were common. I have shot five 



SPORT IX ALGERIA 


177 

good bucks in a day there, and I once saw an albino. 

In that country I also got badly shot myself. I had 
made the acquaintance at Biskra of a delightful Irish 
boy who had an “ if ” about his lungs, and was very 
anxious to get fit enough to pass his medical examina- 
tion for the Army. In this he succeeded, distinguished 
himself in the Boer War and got a D.S.O., and was 
killed in the Great War. He was my constant com- 
panion this winter, and was the keenest and wildest 
pupil I ever had, always longing to shoot something 
and always doing the wrong thing. 

After weeks of incredible efforts he had never hit 
a bird or beast, but his anxiety to kill never flagged. 
I was always trjdng to get him an easy chance. One 
day I spied a fine solitary buck Dorcas in a bit of 
desert well sprinkled with bushes. I placed him 
behind a bush with his gun loaded with buckshot, 
and left my rifle with him in case the buck passed too 
far off for his gun, telling him I was sending my Arab 
to move the buck, and that he would most likely pass 
between him and the next bush, some fifty to sixty 
yards off, behind which I would be stationed to watch 
and perhaps help to turn the buck towards him. 

All went according to plan. The gazelle walked 
slowly up during the next half-hour, and then stood 
stock still half-way between us. My pal fired both 
barrels at him and bowled me over (I was kneeling) 
with the first barrel, but I got into a sitting posture 
before the buck had got over his astonishment, when 
“ crack 1 ” went the rifle, and I was covered with sand 
and gravel from a .500 express expanding bullet just 
short of me. The buck bolted and was followed by 
another bullet. 



lyS HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

I was badly hit — one slug in my face and another 
in my skull, while one grazed my thigh. 

This happened at about i p.m. after some seven 
hours’ riding, but I was able to do another sixteen 
and a half hours through the night to Biskra. 

This was all that my youthful friend bagged the 
whole of that winter, and a more devoted nurse I could 
not have had. I was more sorry for him than for 
myself. 

Further on I intend to give a few extracts of interest 
to naturalists and sportsmen, but here is an early one : 
“ 1892. Near Blida. — Oct. 19 . . . Saw a very 
curious sight on the road to the Gorge de la Chiffa ; 
three Arabs carrying on a donkey what I thought was 
a dead lion. We pulled up and called to them that 
we might see the trophy ; they gave the lion a pull 
off the donkey, and to our astonishment he was alive 
and they brought him grumbling and slobbering to 
meet us. 

“ After a close inspection the king of beasts showed 
his teeth, was given a whack with a heavy stick, 
whereupon he waddled back to the donkey and rolled 
on to the donkey’s back, and hung like a limp sack, 
the fore feet on the offside and the hind feet on the 
near side, just reaching the ground, and apparently 
went to sleep.” 

This was a fine black-maned Algerian lion. The 
lions of Algeria and of Cape Colony were by far the 
heaviest and finest specimens of Felis leo. I have a 
record of an Algerian lion 2.50 metres from tip of 
nose to the root of the tail ; the tail length 75 cm. ; 
total length, 10 feet 7| inches. 



Chapter XXVI 


OF THE BARBARY WILD SHEEP AND DORCAS 
GAZELLE 

I MUST now say something about the animal which 
has been to me the most fascinating of all descrip- 
tions of big game, the varieties of which that have 
fallen to my rifle, number between eighty and one 
hundred species. This, Ovis lervia^ is the only African 
species of wild sheep, and is to be found in certain 
mountains throughout the Atlas Range from the 
Atlantic to the Gulf of Gabes, also in those of the 
Tuareg country, as well as in some Egyptian and Sudan 
mountain ranges. 

It is by far the most difficult animal to spy and to 
approach, not only because it is endowed with in- 
credible acuteness of sight, hearing and smell, and by 
its protective colouring, but with the highest order of 
protective intelligence ; it frequents ground where it 
keeps ceaseless watch over a wide field of vision. By 
day it is almost invariably found on rocky ground in 
still and quiet climates, on cliff faces, in cliff caves, on 
pinnacles or promontories, motionless from an hour 
or so after sunrise, until an hour before sunset, and 
feeding only during the night and the first and last 
hours of daylight. The most skilful stalkers will be 
defeated four times out of five by the old rams — ^and 
you are fortunate if you get two decent chances in 
a month of strenuotK work. 



l8o HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

I tried all sorts of footwear and my bare feet before 
I found anything silent enough and tough enough. 
Ordinary solid rubber-soled boots would be cut to 
ribbons in two days on these red-hot rocks all ja.gged 
and pointed like broken glass. Indian rope soled 
sambur leather boots would wear longer, but were not 
absolutely noiseless ; but I found a maker of a quality 
of red rubber, called Fox, in Conduit Street, who put 
me on soles which would stand about two months and 
outwear any leather or ordinary rubber soles. 

I remember once after some six weeks in the Algerian 
and Tunisian mountains being reduced to my bare 
feet, and going barefooted for ten days without much 
discomfort, my feet had got so hard, and returning 
to Biskra thus, and with clothes torn to ribbons. In 
those days you had to report yourself to the French 
authorities at the Bureau Arabe, and the astonishment 
of the French officers at my appearance I have never 
forgotten. It was greater when I assured them that I 
did these things for pleasure. 

The commandant remarked, “ Mais, vous Anglais 
sont tous fous ! ” 

I could tell extraordinary stories of the cunning of 
the Arrowi or Arui, the name we used for these sheep. 
One will suffice. One afternoon I was searching the 
great face of a precipice methodically with my deer 
glass when I saw an Arab with his long flint-lock gun 
lying on his face on the summit of a precipice, peering 
down a long fissure ; this fissure eventually became a 
ravine leading into a maze of gullies farther down the 
moimtain. 

I worked this fissure with my glass and found an 
old ram standing at attention, under a shelf. The 







WILD SHEEP AND GAZELLE l8l 

Arab never moved, but evidently thought the ram 
was somewhere below. After about half an hour he 
threw a stone down which clattered past the ram and 
then more stones. I saw the ram crouch and keeping 
always under cover of shelves and never once exposing 
himself, reach a part of the ravine hidden from the 
cliff top. Then he stood listening and looking occa- 
sionally up and below him, he selected an intricate 
and circuitous route for half a mile without once 
exposing himself to view. He then got to a point 
when he could not reach the mountain he was making 
for without crossing a ridge in view, from this point 
he crossed at top pace in a second and was gone. I 
turned my glass on to the Arab and he was still 
watching the fissure and I crawled away and left him 
there probably for the night. 

I have known Arabs sit in one spot, with a skin of 
dates and a skin of water for three days and nights on 
the chance of an Arrowi passing a certain col. I have 
often wondered whether you would not get more 
chances that way, if you had the patience, than by walk- 
ing range after range and spending hours with the 
glass. 

The finest head I ever saw was obtained by a native 
in this way, and it is now in the Natural History 
Museum at South Kensington. I had spent days 
looking for the same ram in the Amarkhadou, judging 
from his track that he was a fine specimen. 

This sport would break the heart of most hunters, 
but its being the highest test of hunting craft would 
make it appeal to many men. It takes you into very 
strange places, curious salt mountains, labyrinths of 
ravines, places where you can observe a wonderful 



l8a HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

variety of raptores, rare birds, lovely rock plants, 
beautiful flowers, curious small mammals, reptiles, 
marvellous views of deserts and mountains, and where 
you will occasionally come across the striped hyaena, 
leopards, foxes, zorillas, and often see the exquisite 
Admi antelopes. 

These last are about as difBcult to stalk and to obtain • 
as the Arrowi, though more numerous. I have often 
seen nine or ten, but never more than thirteen wild 
sheep together, and the flocks are usually about half 
this number. I have had little ones, and they are 
easily tamed when caught young — and seem to bear 
captivity particularly well. 

I have never seen the Arrowi drink, and, of course, 
the desert gazelle live entirely without water in the 
real desert where rain does not fall once in ten or 
fifteen years. The desert animals cannot draw water 
from the wells in those parts where there are wells. 

For anyone who can stand heat I recommend the 
months of March and April for hunting the wild 
sheep, or even the beginning of May. The Arab 
shepherds have gone with their flocks to the cooler 
regions of the North, and you have the mountains to 
yourself. It is the time of flowers and the nesting of 
birds, and this country, everywhere, in the mountains, 
to the sea, is a paradise in the spring for the botanist 
and ornithologist. I published a list in 1902 of 387 
Algerian species of birds, and this list has now been 
much extended. 

This winter I made my first acquaintance with the 
most wonderful of all races of camels, the meharia of 
the real Sahara. The first mission from the then 
mysterious Tuaregs to the Governor of Algeria 





WILD SHEEP AND GAZELLE 1 83 

arrived on their meharia at Biskra in November, 1892. 
I photographed a mehari and the veiled strange 
members of their embassy who were armed with long 
spears, long swords and arm-daggers, and saw them 
olfby train to Algiers on November 13th, 1892. 

The next month I witnessed on horseback the final 
stage of a race by Chamba Arabs, riding the same 
breed for a prize given by Cardinal Lavigerie of one 
thousand francs. The race was from Ouargla (Royal 
Geographical Society spelling, “ Wargla ”) to Biskra, 
366 kilometres. I came in alongside the winning 
mehari, which had completed the distance in thirty-six 
hours and twenty minutes. He arrived well and fast, 
less fatigued than his rider, although he had torn a toe 
during this race. The distance in miles is 227, the 
average pace being at something over six miles an 
hour for more- than two days and a night (thirty-six- 
hours twenty minutes). 

In after years I came across Chamba Arabs, who 
had ridden from Ouargla to Ghadmes on these 
wonderful animals with one stage of thirteen days 
between wells. This was when I went in 1899 south 
of Ouargla. 

I consider that these large high-quality camels of 
the true Sahara are to other races of camels what the 
thoroughbred is among equine races ; many of them 
are exceedingly beautiful and snow-white in colour. 
I have had a fast, easy Arabian riding camel in Somali- 
land, with pace and stamina — a most delightful 
companion ; but I do not think any Arabian camel 
could match the better-class Mehari. 

Biskra was now becoming better known, and some 
of my relations and friends came out during the follow- 



184 half a century of sport 

ing winter and I made the acquaintance of other 
visitors. I found more interest in acting shikari to 
some of these than in shooting by myself, always 
excepting my eagerness to defeat the Arrowi. 

One art I had acquired was that of moving gazelle 
in the direction of, and right on to, a placed rifle or 
gun in the desert. I generally selected, if possible, a 
single buck or small bunch of good males, taking care 
only to get near enough to them on a horse to make the 
buck move — it might be a mile off. 

I found if I first moved them when their heads 
were in the direction of the distant ambush, and if I 
never .disturbed them enough to make them break 
into a trot, I could manoeuvre so that I could bring 
one or a whole troop right on to the very spot I wished. 
-It is very easy when you are manoeuvring thus over 
miles of unvarying desert to lose the particular stone 
of bunch of grass behind which the shooter is lying 
-flat, so that it is important throughout the operations 
to keep your eye on your marks. 

Anyone can easily, with very little practice, acquire 
such skill as is necessary. The advantage of this 
proceeding is that you get the best heads. The very 
best I have ever seen were got by my guns this way, 
one or two being better ones than I have obtained 
myself out of scores shot between 1892 and 1900. 

Unknown to Biskra people, there were gazelle which 
I knew of, close to the oasis, and I remember placing 
my brother (the present Lord Gainford) in some rocky 
ground and bringing a fine male up to his unerring aim 
within an hour of our hotel. 

As for the wild sheep, I have known the best stalkers 
at home spend an arduous month or six weeks without 



WILD SHEEP AND GAZELLE iS^ 

getting a shot. I have mentioned the noted Celestin 
Passet of Gavarnie. He was a phenomenal performer 
with the deer glass and was brought out on several 
occasions by English sportsmen to help them. I knew 
him once out for a month in the Aures with the late 
Sir Edmund Loder without, as he admitted, ever 
once getting his glass on to a single sheep, and I have 
known him do at least seven hours a day with the 
glass. 

After some experience I gave up spying at 9 a.m. 
and did not attempt methodical spying again until 
4 p.m. You are far more likely to jump them in some 
fastness of the rocks than to spy them between these 
hours. I give my tips for what they are worth, but 
however much help of any sort is given the hunter of 
this game, he will require all his patience and skill and 
a turn of luck to get a good ram. 



Chapter XXVII 


ADVENTURES IN MOUNTAIN AND DESERT. 

1892-95 

I MUST tell the story of a friend of mine, the late 
Edward Devas, to whom I had explained the diffi- 
culties of stalking the Arrowi sheep, and whom I had 
equipped with my camp bundobust, mules and 
-shikari. He would not accept the loan of my Purdey 
.500 express (this was before the modern flat trajectory, 
high velocity rifles). He had no experience of stalking 
and had' bought in Algiers an ancient Wetter li military 
rifle with an enormously long barrel with some old 
csirtridges, about one inch long, with a pinch of black 
powder behind the solid bullet. 

I directed him to a mountain where I had located 
two or three lots of sheep. He climbed the mountain 
-before sunrise, stood upright, his six feet or more of 
height on the skyline facing the risen sun, and sur- 
veyed the valley below him and the ridge of the 
• opposite mountain. He saw four ewes and an old 
ram, galloping along the far ridge, which had seen him, 
and with the ancient Wetterli loosed off at them ; the 
old ram fell, and when at last he got to him he had killed 
it with a shot in the eye at a range of over four hundred 
yards, and this was a galloping shot with a rifle he 
did not know, with a great foresight which covered 
an acre of ground at that range ! 



MOUNTAIN AND DESERT 1 87 

This was a better head than I ever got in three 
arduous seasons, though I missed two as good or 
better at far less range and with a good rifle. 

For a mixture of good and bad luck the followfng 
tale, told me by my shikari of the fate of one of his 
friends in a mountain I was hunting at the time, takes 
some beating. His friend and another Arab came 
across a ram caught by his horns in the fork of an old 
thuya tree. They decided to take him alive and get a 
good price for him at Biskra.’ The one took off hi^' 
long kummerbund and tied one end round the rarn’i 
horns and the other end round his own waist, whilst 
the other tied his kummerbund to a hind 1%, holding 
the end. They then released the ram’s head. 

Away he went over rocks and terraces until the; 
Arab who was holding on to the leg fell and let go, his- 
companion being taken full gallop to the cliffs, over.- 
which the unfortunate fellow and the ram went and 
were dashed to death. 

At the beginning of 1894 my friend. Sir Edmund 
Loder, came out to join me in a search for a species 
of gazelle, which we had identified from horns and 
skins which reached the Biskra market, as a new one.. 
It was well known to the Arabs of the South by the., 
name of the Rime, yet was unknown “ to science.” 

I had obtained information of its existence in a very 
waterless sand dune country east of the Shotts and 
north of El Oued-Souf — at least a hundred miles 
nearer than where even the Arabs believed it to be. 

After an arduous journey and most fatiguing hunt- 
ing in these dunes, we found a few ; I saw several 
good males, and more females, but they were very 
alert, and I never got a chance. Loder alone got 



1 88 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

one with a very long-range shot, and gained immor- 
tality thereby, on St. Valentine’s Day, 1894. It was 
a good male, and is the type specimen of the Gazella 
Loderi in the British Museum, South Kensington. 
In a later expedition in the Oued Igharghar, south- 
east of Ouargla, I saw quantities, and shot five, and 
was able to supply Loder with specimens for his 
museum. A case of three, mounted whole, I gave to 
the Dorman Museum at Middlesbrough. 

We should never have found the Rime in 1894 
but for a negro slave, Ibrahim, whom we took from 
his job of herding some camels in the desert. I give 
one extract from my diary of our last day in that weary 
but very beautiful bit of desert. 

“ February 16. We are tired out, but had to make 
one more bid before we gave up this most arduous 
chase. A very hot day ; seven hours in the saddle, 
with seven hours trudging in the heavy sand. Riding 
home by moonlight, we had some difficulty in finding 
our camp by means of our morning trail, and had to 
ride at a certain angle to catch it by the light of the 
moon. 

“ While hunting, I walked mostly barefoot, but 
sometimes in slippers. . . . Ibrahim is an excellent 
hunter ; both he and Ali (my regular shikari) by the 
lightest touch with the finger of a print in the sand 
can tell the age of the track to an hour or two — indeed, 
the nigger just touches the track with his big toe.” 

This is possible by the fact that until sunrise there 
is dew, and this forms a slight crust on the track ; a 
touch with the toe discovers the crust, and hence a 
track that has been made before sunrise. After the 
sun has been up an hour the track has no crust, and 



MOUNTAIN AND DESERT 1 89 

the sand during the day runs down more and more 
into the depression of the imprint. 

Ibrahim must have run each day some twenty-six 
miles alongside our horses, exclusive of the hunting, ; 
he did this on one meal a day — of camel’s milk dhd 
dates. 

During this expedition we had what was my first 
taste of th.e horrors of a real sandstorm in the desert ; 
but another winter I was in one when for three days 
and nights we had to lie in the sand with our heads 
covered, where we could not, and dare not, move. 
These terrible storms rarely last more Aan three days, 
but if you are far from water this delay may cost you 
your life. 

On one occasion about this time the whole of a 
small French military expedition was wiped out thus. . 
One solitary camel had died within a kilometre of the 
well, from which they were distant about a couple of 
marches. It must be one of the most terrible of 
deaths. 

The end of February found us hunting in the moun- -, 
tains once more. I give one or two more extracts 
from my journal. Loder and I had been exploring an 
awful mountain which we had christened “ Djebel 
Agony.” Of our last day there I wrote ; 

“ March 5th . — K long day with Ali, seeing more 
than a dozen admi. I had a too successful stalk, getting 
within thirty yards of two, and as I raised myself to 
shoot (they were lying on the skyline of the ridge 
above me) they were up and over the ridge. Another 
curiously unlucky thing happened to me. I was 
sitting in a little dry water-course meditating and look- 
ing at my hands after eating my lunch, with Ali asleep 



190 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

behind a big stone on my left. I had unconsciously 
edged away about four yards from Ali, and my rifle 
(the latter as a rule I kept close by me), when I hap- 
pened to look up and there within five yards of me 
wa’s a fine buck admi gazing at me, making curious 
grimaces and his tail going like mad. 

“ We looked earnestly at each other for two awful 
minutes, and then the admi began to stamp his foot, 
so I whispered as loud as I dared to Ali, ‘ Mookelah.’ 
Ali, like a good warrior, sleeps lightly, and had the 
sense to see without my moving that I was at a steady 
point. I edged my hand down, and he moved the 
rifle slowly towards me, but long before it was in my 
-hand Mr. Admi had got over the skyline, which was 
only twenty yards off.” 

“ March 6th. — Loder tired of the ‘ Agony,’ and 
I disheartened ; and worse, the little trickle of water 
Aat there is here is nasty and purgative . . . but we 
went out together and saw admi but without a chance 
of getting near. . . . What a hot day I We hunted 
till dark.” 

“ March 9th. — We were on ‘ that great bristling 
great mountain of Chicha ’ . , . I saw four arrowi 
at 7.30 a.m., and had a very hard day on the precipices. 
One very nasty place I climbed in Ali’s wake, and had 
one of those nasty turns you get when you feel that 
the rock on which you know your only support 
depends is coming away from the face. I made a 
desperate plunge and just saved myself as the rock went 
thundering down close past my head. The men are 
cooked and our boots quite worn out.” 

This entry reminds me of a very narrow escape I 
had on the Djebel M 4 fiaa» This is a very beautiful 



MOUNTAIN AND DESERT I9I 

salt mountain of extraordinary formation, Honey- 
combed with deep ravines, fissures and 4®®P pits with 
slippery slopes. It is a favourite resort for wild sheep 
and admi for the salt licks and salt herbage. 

I slipped off a narrow ledge and went sliding down 
the slope towards the cliff below ; I spread myself 
out flat on my face with my legs wide apart, and came 
to rest with a foot against each side of a narrow couloir 
above the cliff. I dared not move, but Ali, at the risk 
of his life, got down to me and saved me». No one 
need tell me that you cannot depend oh any- Arab. 

I have had three who were as faithful and staunch as 
any men could be. 

Years after I did my best to requite this service. 
Ali in a fit of just rage slew his wife and her lover, 
whom he caught fia^ante delicto in his own tent. 
This, as I think rightly, is no crime under Moham- ■ 
medan law, but Ali got a sentence of seven years’, 
penal servitude in the convict prison at Lambesa. I 
was able to persuade the French authorities of the 
uprightness and irreproachable character of Ali bel 
Kassim, and he was liberated. He returned to his 
tents, however, and shortly afterwards died of a 
broken heart. I had another faithful follower, Taha 
bel Lazouach, who died from the results of exposure 
in a snowstorm when with me and my son. 

Later in the month I have an entry : “ The great 
heat continues. Loder and I started at 5.30 a.m. I 
was wearily climbing up some ugly rocks on the 
north side of El Golea (where I had recently shot a 
good ram), about 9.30 a.m., when looking up I saw 
a couple of hundred feet above me Loder basking in 
the sun. I got up to him, when after a few minutes’- 



192 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

silence we had to confess that the arrowi had fairly- 
beaten us and that we must give up the game. 

“ About ten o’clock the men said ‘ whain ? ’ the 
local Arabic for ‘ where ? ’ meaning which mountain 
are you going to next. I replied, ‘ Djebel Biskra.’ 
This was a joke that our shikaris could master, and 
they were so delighted with it that it became the 
expression consacree for ‘ throwing up the sponge * 
among our camp followers.” 



Chapter XXVIII 


MORE ABOUT ALGERIA AND TUNISIA IN 1894 

I SHALL finish with my Algerian experiences before 
I return to any English and European ones. In 
November and December, 1894, in the company of 
two cousins, the late Mr. W. E. Pease, M.P., and 
Miss S. H. Pease, we worked our way from Batna 
by Mount Chelia, through the northern ranges of the 
Aures and to the desert, in the hope of finding lions 
and other game in Chelia, but we found little except 
wild boars and admi antelopes. The last lions had 
gone years, perhaps ten years, before. 

Here is my record of prices I paid for our horses 
and mules in the Batna market : Five horses cost 
800 francs and five mules 1185 francs — ^^79 for the 
ten. The mules were a splendid lot. There was much 
of interest and adventure in this journey, also of 
hardship through torrential rains and flooded camps, 
but no sport worth describing. 

The .256 Mannlicher rifle had just been brought 
out, and St. George Littledale, the noted explorer and 
hunter, had initiated me into its mechanism and virtues 
in London. I had now adopted it, and when at last 
I got Fraser, of Edinburgh, to get rid of the military 
double long pull, and to cut its barrel down and re- 
sight it, I had a rifle that lasted me for fifteen years, 
and with which no other rifle (and I have tried most 



194 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

sorts) was comparable. This rifle cost me originally 
four pounds, plus ten pounds for adaptation and a 
lyman sight. I have had other Mannlichers, .256 
and. 9 mm., but I never had one so true and handy as 
this one. No other rifle is so quiet to load or can do 
such execution with so small a bore. This is my 
opinion of the Mannlicher. 

The superiority of the old clip-loading Mannlicher 
over the Schoenauer is chiefly in the much greater 
rapidity of loading. With the clips you load five 
partridges far faster than you can load one with the 
Schoenauer, and as the bolt drives the last cartridge 
into the chamber the clip drops with a little “ ring,” 
•and signals that it is the last. 

There is none of the trouble and delay in ” strip- 
• ping ” a clip, which you have in other rifles. I have 
killed many lions and large animals like kudu and 
hippo as quickly with the .256 and with less trouble 
than with any other rifle. I have killed seven greater 
kudu bulls clean with it, all in fact that I have fired at. 

Twice, when particularly anxious to impress natives, 
I have made gallery shots with it, and consider both 
shots very lucky ones as the fine foresight covered 
more than the whole target. One occasion was when 
we were spending ten days as guests of the Kaid of 
Khanga Sidi Nadji, who had never seen a modern 
rifle. I give the incident as described in my diary : 

“December 7th, 1894. . . . This day the Elhalifa 
asked to see me fire my Mannlicher, and selecting a 
large stone on the far side of the river I fired a shot, 

_ without taking much pains, and hit it high ; not at 
J;,4ll a good shot, but it astonished the Arabs, as the 
range was beyond anything they knew, and I fired 



ALGERIA AND TUNISIA IN 1 8 94 195 

very quickly. The Khalifa asked to try his hand, and 
I handed him the rifle, explained to him how to use 
the sights, and fixed the lyman carefully. He took 
careful aim, and to the great delight of his following 
(he had his goum with him) hit the stone exactly in the 
centre, putting me to shame. 

“ I felt it necessary to do something for my reputa- 
tion, and first invited him to try another shot ; hut he 
said ‘no.’ I then asked if he could see a solitary white 
pebble high up on the mountain side opposite . . . 
it was just visible, the distance was about three hundred' 
yards, but looked much greater, owing to the ravine 
and river. 

“ I screwed my lyman up to a fine three hundred' 
yards, and by an extraordinary and most opportune,- 
bit of good fortune I split the little stone to pieces.' 
A man ran off and brought in the pieces and a frag- 
ment of the bullet. This fluke was the best timed one 
I ever made, and created a great impression.” 

The other occasion was some years later when I was 
having an indaha with the Swazie Queen “ Mac-Mac ” 
and her heir “ Prince ” Fana. Having arranged at 
her kraal all her affairs of state, I was presented with 
a huge white ox. 

Now Fana was the only native in those parts to 
whom I had granted the privilege of owning a rifle, 
and he was very proud of the distinction. I told him 
to get his rifle and shoot the ox, and to distribute the 
meat amongst his people. He asked where he had to 
shoot it, and I put my finger in the centre of the ox’s 
forehead. Fana from a yard off took a careful aim • 
and hit the wretched ox in the nose ! Of course, the'-' 
poor beast was maddened, and I had really an awk- 



196 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

•ward job to get a safe shot, but he fell dead to one in 
the neck. 

After this disgusting business, Captain Slatter (my 
Police Commandant) and I went outside the kraal 
to rest on the edge of the mountain, but were followed 
by Fana, the Ring-Kops and others, and Fana begged 
me to shoot at something “ to please the men.” I 
could just detect a wild pigeon sitting in the top of a tree 
across the valley. Slatter laughed when I said, “ I 
don’t see anything else for a mark.” Slatter himself 
was a remarkable marksman, though he had lost a 
hand. 

The pigeon I judged to be 120 yards off, and I 
told Fana I was going to aim just below its ear. This 
by way of a joke. To my amazement I killed the 
pigeon, and to the astonishment of Slatter and the 
crowd, the Kaffir sent to retrieve it returned with it 
decapitated. That was the best fluke of my life. 
They begged in vain “ for more.” 

To return to Algeria. The Khalifa was determined 
to show us some sport, and had out all his forces to 
drive a great mountain for wild sheep. Djebel 
Djermona was the name of the mountain. I say of 
this day : “ We went up the mountain about forty 
strong.” A number of us were placed in posts — the 
Arabs with flintlock and matchlock guns. “ Djer- 
mona is kept as a preserved hunting ground for the 
Kaid, the only mountain in Algeria I know of which 
has immunity from the ceaseless persecution of the 
Arab hunters and shepherds. . . .” 

We were posted in no sort of line ; the only ram 
that came within range ran the gauntlet of numerous 
guns unscathed. “ In time of peace it is unlikely 



ALGERIA AND TUNISIA IN 1 8 94 197 

that one could ever feel more like being in action in 
the middle of the curling line of guns. When the 
Arabs opened fire, bullets splashed all round you, 
and whistled and sang over your head from the guns 
below you. Will Pease shot a fine striped hyasna, 
otherwise this day was barren of results.” 

In January, ’95, I had my brother Jack as a com- 
panion (the present Lord Gainford), and thou^ we 
had disappointments with the wild sheep, we got 
several, and he on one occasion scored a right and left 
at males. 

This winter I made the acquaintance of a remarkable 
man, Fernand Foureau (b. 1850, d. 1914), who- 
consulted me as to the type of rifle with which hq. 
should arm his expeditionary force in a renewed 
attempt to penetrate into the Tuareg countries. He had 
previously made attempts, and had been successful in 
locating the scene (the wells of Tadjenout) of the 
annihilation of the Colonel Flatter’s expedition, and 
had returned from this great venture to Biskra with 
relics of the ill-fated force. He had also for the first 
time negotiated with the Tuaregs an assent to enter 
into commercial relations with the French. 

He finally performed perhaps the greatest feat in 
the wonderful history of African exploration, by 
crossing the great unknown regions between French 
Algeria and Timbuctoo. With this object he made 
repeated expeditions between 1884 and 1896, and 
at last in 1898-1900 it was accomplished. The 
whole story is a very exciting and interesting one, the 
earlier chapters of which he related to me himself. 
He was as hardy, intrepid and as adventurous a man as- 
ever even Africa has seen. 



198 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

I Strongly advised him to adopt the .256 Mann- 
licher especially as every pound of weight in arms 
and ammunition was important, and after I had given 
him a demonstration and explained every detail of its 
mechanism, he decided on it and never regretted it. 
Foureau gave me much information about the fauna 
beyond ' the last French desert outposts, and Sir 
Edmund Loder joined me early in February at Biskra 
in order to try for addax. 

Unfortunately we were held up by the French 
military authorities at El Oued, the last French post 
in the south-east until leave from the General de 
Division at Batna was obtained. It took many days 
to heliograph the request and to receive the reply. 
Leave was refused, the excuse being the danger from 
the Tuaregs, who raided at times north of Bir Beresof. 
We were released on parole not to go south. No 
“ prisoners ” were ever more hospitably entertained 
than we were by the French Commandant and the 
officers. 

We had a somewhat dreary and adventurous 
journey north to the Tunisian Shotts and to Nefta, and 
spent the spring months in hunting in the Tunisian 
mountains and Western Aures. I mention this, the 
first of three attempts I have made to get the addax 
(which failed), in order to give other sportsmen the 
information, which may help them to succeed. 

The three regions in which I should now feel pretty 
confident of finding addax are : (i) about a week 
south or south-west of Bir Beresof, the latest informa- 
tion as to their presence being obtainable at El Oued 
on _ the way there ; (a) a few days’ south of Ain 
Tai^ba, the latest information being obtainable at 





ALGERIA AND TUNISIA IN 1 8 94 1 99 

Ouargla ; (3) south-west and south of the Dongok-. 
bend of the Nile. The great point is to get information 
from the Arabs as to where rain has last fallen in these 
regions, for where there is fresh grass there are the 
addax, and once found they are numerous and easy 
to obtain. 



Chapter XXIX 


TRAVELS IN THE SAHARA— SPORT IN STYRIA 
(189s TO 1899) 

I AM not going to write of my longest journey in 
the Sahara (1898-99) as it yielded practically no 
sport. Indeed, on one stretch of twenty-one days’ 
marching, from Oued -Chair to Guerara, all I saw of 
living creatures were three gazelles and some flocks of 
sand grouse. Yet in the beautiful Erg, among the 
mountains of sand further south. Rime abounded, 
and in some districts Dorcas gazelle were numerous. 

There were also lovely fennecs and curious crea- 
tures including the sand-fish, which in appearance 
is simply a fish but finless as well as limbless. It is 
spotted minutely, like a trout, and swims at a pace 
beneath the sand which makes it difficult to catch. 

I kept one alive for months, but having handed it 
over to my children at Biskra as a pet, finally & femme 
de chamhre trod on it when it was swimming under 

Note. — ^Those who know the “ rules ? of the Royal Geographical Society, as 
well as those who are familiar with the Arabic of Egypt and other parts of the world, 
may object to my spelling the names of places and words, according to the local 
Arabic pronunciation and French rendering of words in North Africa and the French 
Sahara. 

The letter called Wanx> in English is Ouaou in Algeria and beyond. The Wady 
of Egypt is Oued in Algeria, etc. 5 the name of the town called Wargla on English 
maps is, and is pronounced- Ou-argla ^ Wed Souf is the English for Ou-ed Souf, 
and as the English W obliterates the Ou in the Owaou, I maintain it should not be 
used in this part of Africa. There are many common Arabic words in North Africa 
totally diiferent from the Egyptian ones. 



THE SAHARA AND STYRIA 


201 


the carpet. It seemed to thrive on a liberal allowance 
of daily changed sand, and I mention this curious 
creature as I have never come across any description 
of it in English natural histories. 

I had at one time and another some singular pets 
captured in Algeria, an arrowi, a gazelle, a fennec, a 
zorilla, jerboas, silvery little hedgehogs, a wild boar 
and a jackal, all perfectly tame. The last two lived 
for years in England long after I got home again. 

I may add thrt the same manoeuvring on horseback, 
with a final charge at top pace, I found was quite practi- 
cal with the Rime as with the Dorcas, for anyone 
accustomed to the game and to shooting at full gallop ; 
though a sand desert is much more exhausting for 
your horse, and you require a Saharian barb to stand 
it. It is, of course, much easier to “ get on ” to your 
target cutting through a troop of, or across in front 
of a single gazelle with a short-barrelled rifle. 

In my later African years, I had a .256 Mannlicher, 
23J in. barrel, 6 \ lb. weight, which I used for all 
purposes when riding, and also for stalking. I had 
a .9 mm. Mannlicher 17 in. barrel for lions when 
riding, but for long range and stalking I found a .256 
barrel, 25 in. long, the best. The barrel measure- 
ments are exclusive of the bolt chamber. I may say, 
however, that I killed most of my lions with the .2^6 
Mannlichers, and every lion I have killed at close 
quarters, I have knocked out with a 10 bore, and these 
last include four lions which charged home. 

Naturally I swear, therefore, by the big bore and 
the big bullet for lions. I have twice seen the high 
velocity rifles and bullets absolutely fail to stop, or 
even check a charge, though in both cases the lions 
u 



202 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

got the bullet full in the mouth ; in one case it was 
a .400 cordite rifle, and in the other a ,280 Ross. 
What you want to do is to smash a charging lion down 
at once and not to drill a hole through his head. It 
may be a clumsy illustration, but you can smash a window 
pane to pieces with a cricket ball when you would only 
drill a tiny hole through it with an automatic pistol. 

would rather defend my life at three yards’ range 
against a lion with an ordinary 12-bore shotgun than 
with the most powerful .400 cordite rifle. I am only 
referring to lions or tigers. I do not regard leopards 
as dangerous game in the same sense. I never knew 
any man killed by a leopard, and I knew of two men 
who killed leopards with their bare hands. 

I am now, as far as these notes are concerned, going 
to say good-bye to the Atlas and to the Great Sahara. 
When I think of the labour and hardship we who 
travelled in such regions went through in the end of 
the last century — shaving to buy young camels, break 
them in, having to make the camel bags, and mule 
bags (telisses), buy and test waterskins, collect barley, 
chaff for our animals, provisions for our men and selves; 
preparations that took weeks of exertion before we 
started on a desert journey of five or six hundred 
miles, and of the marches of ten or eleven hours, day 
after day, without accomplishing more than twenty 
miles a day on the average, the contrast with modern 
facilities is so amazing as to leave one speechless. 

I have lived to see what took me five months to 
do, done in a week or two with motor cars and in a 
few hours by aeroplane. And yet I would not ex- 
change my time for the new, or our intimacy with the 
desert, our familiarity with its silence, its starry and 




•MAI I LION AND 



THE SAHARA AND STYRIA 203 

moonlight nights, with its people, its denizens and its 
dangers, for anything else. 

The Austrians, and sportsmen generally in Central 
Europe, surround their sport with a great deal of 
custom and paraphernalia which at first seems strange 
to Englishmen. For instance in Austria you are 
never supposed to shoot blackgame or capercaillie 
excepting during these birds’ courting season in the 
spring, and then you only stalk the cocks, a week or two 
^ter the mating time has begun. It is quite an 
interesting sport as practised, but does not seem 
ve^ productive to those who have seen bags of 
thirty or more capercaillie in the day in Perthshire, 
yet in the old, larger Austria of my time about five 
thousand cock capercaillie were shot each year. In 
Austria, you listen for notes of the cock capercaillie, 
which begin with a curious noise called schnalzer and 
are followed by a note called the triller, ending with a 
loud sort of crack. You are guided by this love song, 
but you make your advance in the moments of para- 
lysed^ ecstasy which follow the “ song,” when the 
bird in the tree is blind and deaf to all worldly affairs 
and allows even shots to be fired without being roused 
from his blissful oblivion. 

I do not know what old customs were killed out by 
the War and by the terrible changes it wrought in 
that beautiful country and among that charming 
people, but in the times I am writing of there was an 
enormous value attached to, and distinction acquired 
by those who obtained, eccentric, peculiar, mal-formed, 
or particularly fine heads of red deer, chamois or roe 
deer. The knowledge about these sort of things and 
their possessors was part of the education of a sportsman. 



204 half a century of sport 

They had a code of venery that seemed to me almost 
mediaeval, and indeed some of their practices were so. 
Poachers of chamois could be and were shot at sight, 
and I knew one case of an Englishman who was 
staying with an Austrian proprietor, and was being 
entertained with lavish hospitality. He was out 
stalking chamois when he and his stalker saw a 
poacher within range. The Jager pointed him out 
and asked the Englishman to shoot him ; he replied 
he would not dream of doing such a thing ; the Ja.ger 
then asked him to hand him his rifle and he refused. 
On their return, the incident was reported to the 
Englishman’s host, who asked if all this was true and 
was told that it was ; whereupon he informed his 
guest that as he refused to help him to protect his 
game he would kindly pack up his things and leave 
the castle at once ; which he did. Knowing this, I 
was quite frightened when my Jager pointed out a col 
■ near a peak called the Prediger Stuhle, where he said 
there was a good chance of shooting poachers who came 
that way from a village ! 

I had two good times in Styria in 1895 
1897 on a beautiful stretch of chamois country owned 
by Prince Philip of Coburg and leased for three 
years by my friend. Sir Edmund Loder. The royal 
house of Cobiu-g have been noted as sportsmen. Our 
Prince Consort’s eldest brother’s dying words were, 
“ Let the drive begin.” The name of the place was 
Schwarzen See, and it was indeed a lovely country of 
gr,eat snow-capped mountains and wooded valleys with 
lakes and streams. Yet it was hard work and we stuck 
at it. 

The rule most days was breakfast at 4.30 a.m. ; 



“rHE SAHARA AND STYRlA 20J 

each rifle had about three hours or more very .stifF 
climbing to his beat between 5.30 and 9 ; but once 
up, the work was not more severe than on a Scotch 
forest. It was the coming down some four thousafld 
feet of very steep ground at the end of the day which 
shook you up and really tired you out. 1 

There were red deer and roe deer in the woods, but 
we stuck steadily to the chamois and only drove a few 
days towards the end of the lease. We were supposed 
by Loder only to shoot bucks, but no one can be 
certain of the sex of chamois at 1 70 to 200 yards, which 
was about the usual range of our shots, for not a few ’ 
geise (does) have male-like horns and the horns are all 
you have to go by. Loder made as many mistakes 
as most of his guests, and the JS.gers were no better 
hands in determining sex than we were. 

On August 20th, 1895, Tanncherinne I record 
that Loder shot a black chamois ; to shoot a white 
one is considered dreadful and augurs death. On "^ 
September i6th the same season I had a cold, wet time 
in the snow and snowstorms, and saw several lots of 
females “ one lot containing a white one and a black 
one, the latter they call a ‘ Kohl ’ (coal).” 

The heaviest buck killed this season (1895) was 
killed by Sir Merrick Burrell, it weighed clean 29 kilos 
(63.8 lb.). I had the next best, 28J kilos (62.15 
The heaviest chamois I know of, one which Count 
Teleki killed in the Southern Carpathians, was 
56 kilos clean (123.4 lb.). The proportion of bucks 
to does was very good always. I have not exact 
figures, but I see in 1897 in my diary that “up to 
September 19th inclusive, thirty bucks were killed 
before a single geise, and out of a total of 42 only 



2o6'. half a century of sport 

' four were females.” In Styria (or Steiermark) some 
2000 chamois were killed annually in the ’nineties. 

I,t is more, usual in Austria to drive than to stalk, 
and' at the end of his season in 1897 Loder was much 
behind his limit and decided to have nine different 
parts tjf his “ shoot ” driven. 

Loder was proud of the average shooting of his 
party. The late Baillie-Grohman, a great authority 
of lifelong experience, was with us and writing of it 
said “ the successful long-range shooting at the drives 
was a revelation to those natives who were present 
'"’and who knew as well as anybody could what is the 
ordinary performance of rifles at drives.” 

The other rifles were the Hon. T. Fremantle (the 
present Lord Cottesloe), perhaps the best of all English 
marksmen ; I. S. Oxley, another great rifle shot, and 
myself. Loder himself was in the first rank of marks- 
men. 

Here is what we did in eight days ; we had one 
■ blank day. 

Loder had 5 blank days 

Baillie-Grohman „ 5 „ „ 

Fremantle „ 5 „ „ 

Oxley „ 2 „ „ 

Pease ^ „ 4 „ ,, 

Yet our total was 46 chamois in eight days. Fremantle, 
who was new to the game, was top scorer with sixteen, 
and depended on his JSger for picking out bucks 
for him. 

In one drive, when Fremantle’s shooting was 
perfect, the JSger made seven mistakes, and out of ten 
clean kills seven were does. Loder made three mistakes, 
as did Baillie-Grohman ; Oxley and I, one each — 



THE SAHARA AND STYRXA 207 

in killing geise. We always drew for places, and - 1 
had the hard luck of drawing top place four days in 
succession, which meant a very rapid and punishing 
climb in a given time. I did not get over this sixain 
on my heart for years. ' , , . 

How easy it is to mistake a doe for a buck is illus- 
trated by this extract from my diary on September 
28th, 1897 : “ Fremantle, Oxley and I rose at five 
and went up the valley. ... I drew top place, and 
had an awful climb to the top of the ridge of the 
Predigers^uhle, but it was worth it. I did not see 
fewer than 200 geise, kitz, ein-jahrigers and zwei-r-. 
jahrigers close to me. They came over the most awful 
ground in strings and bunches, some passing me 
within 10 yds., some standing and panting, some 
grimacing at me, but never a buck. 

“ Just as we began the descent we saw three which 
Barr (the Jager) declared to be bucks. He told me to 
take the last. It was a moving shot, with 150 yds.» 
sight up, and I found him stone dead, but ‘ he ’ was a 
‘ she ’ — a gelder geise with quite abnormally male 
horns. Oxley got a buck and Fremantle had a blank 
day : this brings up the bag to 82. We pack up and 
are off to-morrow.” 

Loder’s limit was ninety, and Baillie-Grohman got 
the other eight in November, long after we had all 
left. In November the high dorsal ridge of chamois 
hair is at its best and longest, and the chamois at this 
season, when in full winter coat, are termed “ Bart- 
gems.” 

In 1895, Lady Loder shot a most curious buck 
with a regular chamois horn grown out of the coronet 
of a forefoot. The horn was in. long and 5 J in. in 



20 8 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

circumference at the base. I saw another . curious 
one in the Engadine in 1 900, where Dr, Oscar Bernard, 
of Samaden, had obtained it. In his specimen the 
horn grew out of a fore-leg ; its length was 1 1 cm., 
and circumference 7 cm., but it had not the crook of 
the chknois horn which Lady Loder’s specimen had. 

Loder never troubled much about the stags and the 
roedeer, and only two stags were killed in the three 
seasons. One Loder killed was twenty-three stone 
clean. 

Baillie-Grohman, who died in 1921, aged seventy, 
said that the best chamois head he knew of was one of 
Count Teleki’s — 12| in. of horn. He himself had 
one with one horn full 12 in. (left) and i if in. (right). 
Andreas Rauch, of Pontresina, got one which he 
gave me, and which I gave to the Dorman Museum, 
Middlesbrough, full ii|- in., and was the second 
strongest I ever heard of, being 3f in. in circumference, 
and with the exceptional distance between tips of 6 ^ in. 
The heaviest buck got during the three seasons 1895— 
97 at Schwarzensee was 31 kilos, killed by Fremantle 
(68.2046 lb.). 



Chapter XXX 


IN ENGLAND AND ELSEWHERE, 1894-95 


I SHALL now hark back to the summer of 1 8 94, in 
England. I stayed with Lord Rosebery at the 
Durdans, and saw him achieve the second of his 
desires when he won the Blue Riband of the Turf' 
with Ladas. (Throstle beat Ladas in the St. Leger 
that year.) Lord Rosebery was then Prime Minister, 
and his capacity to cope with his cares of State, to 
keep up his interests, literary and sporting, and to 
entertain us in the happiest way, was simply mar- 
vellous. 

I was also with Sir Edmund Loder a good deal at 
Leonardslee, where I never tired of watching the 
extraordinary variety of animals he had roaming free 
in his woods and valleys. Beavers, capabaras, and 
other water animals, many kinds of deer, black-buck, 
mouflon, wild sheep, ibex, gazelles, kangaroos, Pata 
gonian cavies, wallabies and other creatures were 
there, as well as strange birds like bush turkeys and 
emus. 

In the autumn I shot with the Edward North Bux- 


ton’s at Garrogie, and had a little stalking too. Gar- 
rogie marched with Glen Dole, and there was a fine 


snow-white stag which belonged to that ground, 
jealously protected for the last seven years by Ross, 
the proprietor. This stag’s mother was a white hind. 



210 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

.Occasionally the white stag came on to Garrogie, and 
one day, I got very near to him and enjoyed a long 
ins|)ection of the only white red deer I have ever seen. 

I -Soften wondered what was the end of the muckle 
Wh^ Hart of Glen Dole — perhaps some of my readers 
will know. 

•• ,"I made a curious shot one day when at Garrogie ; 
my brother-in-law, Gerald Buxton, and I were taking 
long shots with our rifles at rabbits, which were sitting 
out along a river bank-side. I killed one I aimed at, 
and two more — one about 20 yds. beyond the first, and 
the third about 20 to 30 yds. beyond the second — 
all with a soft-nose .256 bullet. Of course, bullets 
must go somewhere, but they do not often choose a 
line of rabbits. 

Every man who shoots has queer experiences. I 
once, in British East Africa, shot at a good impala 
buck on my farm, bounding with about twenty females 
' straight from me, and killed him at about 1 20 yards. 
When I went up, there were two fine males dead. 
This was a great mystery to me, and I can only suppose 
that another was lying down out of sight. 

In September, 1894, when judging hunters at the 
Kendal Show, I record a remark of my colleague, 
James Darrell, who was an experienced judge of 
hunters and of horse breeding, that he “ found in a 
long experience that a mare breeds better to a new 
horse every year, and that the first foal off the same 
mare by a particular sire is superior to his ‘ get ’ off 
her afterwards.” I say then, that I think “ there is a 
good deal in this view ” — but I have never collected 
sufficient information to confirm it. 

There are now (1931) well established colonies of 



211 


ENGLAND AND ELSEWHERE , 

badgers in Epping Forest, but in 1894 there Were 
none, and Mr. Edward North Buxton, who-, all’ his 
life gave ceaseless attention to improving the Fprest a,nd 
adding to its interest, asked me to get him so^e 
badgers to turn down there. Here is an extract^-J^ofn 
the account of how I got him the very first pair >• 

“ September 28th. — Tom (Sir Thos. Fo-vfler) and 
I with my small son Christopher (killed in 19^8) 
men took our terriers which ‘ found ’ opposite my 
house early in the morning. We worked with young 
terriers, as I was loath to risk my old veteran Twig ; 
the consequence was that after we had dug a- .long- 
trench to seven feet deep, the badger buried himself 
and was lost. 

“ I then took Twig, who marked a tiny mouse hole 
which the trench intersected, and although those 
present laughed heartily at Twig and at the idea of a 
badger in a mouse hole, I said nothing but took 
Christopher’s little spade and excavated it. It led- 
into a quantity of loose earth, then Twig immed- 
iately opened tongue and we soon had a very big (30 lb.) 
badger out, also his wife (23 lb.).” 

This October I was lucky so early in the season to 
have some good runs with the Cleveland, and had one 
day with the Zetland “ on a really good mare of 
Jack’s ” (my brother). I mention a great number 
who “ went ” that day ; nearly all are dead — Herbert 
Straker, Eddy Aylmer, Sheldon Cradock, Will and 
Ernie Pease, Arthur F. Pease and Bob Collins are 
among them. 

In the spring of 1895, on our way from Algeria, 
we spent some time at Vernet les Bains, where I had 
a try after iwds on Mount Canigou, but I had as 



212 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

guide a native of an exasperating kind who spoilt any 
chance of getting one. Still, I saw them and enjoyed 
being on the mountains again. 

"• In the summer I was again at the Durdans, and saw 
Sir Visto win Lord Rosebery’s second Derby. It was 
a wonderful performance, as Sir Visto was lying seventh 
when they passed our box on the Grand Stand and 
S. Loates brought him on and won by three-quarters 
of a length. Curzon, a half-bred gelding, was second, 
ridden by Chaloner, and Kirkconnel third. 

In June I record inspecting a “ snow-white foal ” 
out . of a cart mare, foaled on Webster’s farm at 
Newton-under-Roseberry, by a cart stallion — both 
parents bay to brown in colour. This is the only case 
of the sort I have ever seen. It was not an “ albino.” 

In a description of a good day from Redcar in 
November, I find a scene I have sketched in my diary 
that much amused me. The record is as follows, the 
parties being Charlie Ward Jackson’s portly coach- 
man, acting as groom, and Jack Walton, a horse dealer, 
in his spider-gig. 

“ The coachman, groom for the day, was riding one 
of Charlie’s carriage horses. The horse reared and 
fell back over with him at covert side. The man re- 
mounted, trembling, pale and frightened, and sat 
green and blowing. These were Jack Walton’s words 
of comfort to the terrified man : ‘ By gock ! Wot a 
daangeros oss — gert ’elpless beast. Ah can see by his 
gert hoogly hye he’s goin’ to do it agen.’ ” 

In November a neighbour of mine. Nelson, a much 
better ornithologist than I am, consulted me about 
a bird he had shot at Loftus. He thought it might 
be a descendajit of capercaillie my father once turned 



ENGLAND AND ELSEWHERE 213 

out at Hutton, but I assured him that it could not be 
so, as that was a failure, and twenty years ago. The 
authorities at the South Kensington Museum pro- 
nounced it a hybrid between a blackcock and a hen 
pheasant. Yet blackgame are extremely scar.^. -in 
Cleveland since the ’sixties. The last indigenous 
brood we had on our moors which I know of was 
about 1865. My father, in the early ’nineties, hand- 
reared a number successfully, but they were ridiculously 
tame and when turned into the coverts fell an easy 
prey to vermin. I have not seen more than threg. grey 
hens in Cleveland in the last thirty-five years, and pro- 
bably these were visitors from the western moorlands of 
the North Riding or from the west of Durham county. 

In December I inspected a freak rabbit taken in a 
snare by one of our keepers ; it had a hare’s head, but 
was a rabbit, with the rabbit’s coat, yet the hair all 
over its neck and body was longer than that of the 
longest coated Angora rabbit. Its feet were enormous, 
like large hare’s feet. 

Leaving my family in France I hurried home, 
having hoped to get the end of the season with the 
Cleveland, but they had stopped hunting very early. 
I therefore went to my brother’s at Snow Hall, near 
G^inford, and got a day or two with the Zetland, and 
then got a day with the Sinnington. Of the latter day 
I say that it was poor, and that I did not get home, 
after eighteen miles to ride back, until 9 p.m. 

“As I passed Ingleby they were digging Henry 
Sidney’s grave.” He was a younger son of the second 
Lord de L’Isle and Dudley. He died suddenly on 
April 1 3 th, was about my age, and a particularly nice 
man, a good shot and fond of cricket. 



214 CENTURY OF SPORT 

Of one of my days with the Zetland at Blackbanks, 
I write that “ Kit Cradock ” was staying, as I was, 
at my brother’s. His father had been the Master of 
the Hounds (Raby Hunt) before Lord Zetland, and 
ti&|s was his sailor son, who, in the Great War, 
wheS Admiral, went down fighting with his ship 
the Monmouth, in the Pacific. He was a charming 
man. 

Of this day my diary records : “ We had some 
pretty ringing sport about Hoppyland and Shull. In 
the afternoon as we three were about to start for home, 
Cradock got a nasty fall in a wood and was thrown 
into a beck, when he cut his head and lost a large 
quantity of blood. We got him to Hamsterly, and 
from tWe, Elsie (my brother’s wife), drove him to 
Snow Hall, where the doctor bandaged him up.” 

I cannot read about these old days without feelings 
of sadness, nor can I resist putting down the names of 
old friends who were “ good and true,” in a perhaps 
vain hope that they may not be forgotten. 

My brother, who was particularly good all round 
at games, when he lived at Snow Hall, took a wager 
with a man who fancied himself very much to see 
which was the best in thirteen events ; these included 
a turn with guns, with salmon rods in the Tees, single- 
wicket, golf, lawn tennis, billiards, a steeplechase, 
and other contests. My brother having won the first 
eight or nine events of the day with ease, the other 
man “• drew his dog,” confessing he had met more 
than his match. 

Remembering this contest, which took place at 
Snow Hall, it brings to mind a performance of mine 
on the ConisclifFe Golf Course in one of the very few 



ENGLAND AND ELSEWHERE .2^5 

(not more than four) games of golf I ever played, and 
which was to be my last. Golf is a game that I never 
had time for, or, to tell the truth, the least, inclination 
for ; but my brother on this occasion insisted on layy 
taking a txirn with him. 

My play was so peculiar, so very bad and so Wbird 
that we were, before half round the course, followed 
by a crowd of golfers attracted by my brother’s 
instructions and by my attempts to carry them out. 

At the last “ tee ” (I think it is called), I built a 
“ tee ” about a foot high, while the spectators- were 
waiting and tittering. I placed the ball on the summit, 
took a look at my tormentors, and then took a swipe 
with all my might at the ball. It flew over a valley, lit on 
the last green by the church, about three inches from 
the hole, and I walked there and put it in. As far as 
I know no one has or is ever likely to beat that. 

The crowd was amazed, but I was enabled to bear 
myself as if I had been fooling and as if this one was 
just a stroke to exhibit my real form. My brother 
nearly died with laughing, partly at the luck of thd 
thing, but more at the puzzled amazement of the 
hitherto mocking crowd. I retired from golf for the 
rest of my life. 

Part of the month of May I was at Fontainebleau 
and at Barbizon ; of the former I write that I was last 
there in 1869. “ What a change 1 Then these grass- 
grown courts and now ill-kept gardens resounded 
with music and the tambours, and the place was 
bright with the pageantry and life of the Third 
Empire — the change for the worse is as great in 
Paris.” 

Once or twice, on foot, I watched the performance 



2i6 half a century of sport 

of staghunting in the forest. The hounds were few 
and' strange creatures ; for the most part each couple 
pursued with subdued zest different deer, while 
fiveried hunt servants tootled appropriate notes on 
tbeir immense horns. 



Chapter XXXI 


MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND SOMALILAND, 

1896-97 

W HILST in Paris in May, 1896, I write that 
my friend, Edmond Marne of Tours gave me 
a perfect lunch at the Caf^ Papaillard, and took me 
to see the new wonder, the Cin6metographe. 

On June 17th, in London, “ I went after dinner 
to the Imperial Institute, where we listened to the 
Monte Carlo band, and saw the new great stinking, 
shaking motor carriages, and Prince Henri of Orlean’s^ 
Somali trophies,” which were good ; but I was much' 
puzzled by the presence of a very European-looking 
wolf among them. 

My little boy Christopher (ten years old) “ gave a- 
very creditable and laughable display at the Yorkshire 
Show at York in July.” It amused a vast crowd, in a 
very large class of children’s ponies, ” to see him sit 
down and gallop his pony, which nothing in the ring 
could touch for pace, no matter how he was jostled 
and crowded out, for nothing but ‘ Zacky ’ or a cat 
could have got round the corners as he did.” 

The He/i said : “ Master C. Y. Pease, who rides 
with a dash and determination unusual in a boy, won 


1 I have seen a letter from a friend of Prince Henri, who states there was no such 
collection made by Prince Henri of Orleans, 



21 8 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

the spurs for the best rider in the class, and was 
perhaps the happiest individual on the show ground.” 
He was .killed in the Great War. 

On July 25th I was at Wilfrid Blunt’s and saw his 
s&le of Arabs at Crabbet Park. I say that on the 
wHi^ I was disappointed with them, though they 
were bf such a high class and of beautiful quality. 
The highest price was 310 guineas, for Anbar, a 
^beautiful Abeyan Sherrake horse. Another little 
beauty was bought in of the same race, namely, 
Ahmar, and Blunt lent him to me for a season. He 
got few mares besides my own Barbs, but his stock 
was first class. One of my tenants bred a sixteen hands 
first flight hunter by him off a show jumping pony — 
and I never want to ride a much better hunter. 

I disliked Blunt’s half-bred produce, which were 
all by an Arab, Messaoud, off Suffolk Punch mares. 
lYou can’t breed a horse of any class that way ; the 
'lixtremes are too great. 

Tn September I saw and shot quail in Cleveland 
for the first time in my life. We began cubhunting 
■'bn September loth. I had, at the end of September 
and early October some misses when out deer stalking 
at Guisachan and later at Inverewe, which worried 
me very much, as with long practice I reckoned no 
beast could escape me and my Mannlicher, standing 
or moving within two hundred yards’ range ; most 
men who have had long and constant practice in Africa 
feel like that, and yet I missed some very easy “ sitters ” 
-At one hundred yards. 

One stag at Guisachan stood broadside to me at 
about eighty yards, and I was certain he was mine, 
but off he went. I was so taken aback that I did not 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 219 

shoot again till he was about three hundred yards off, 
galloping up a hill, and he flinched and went on. 
About a fortnight after this stag was killed by ahothoc,. 
rifle and my bullets found in the right place yaj/ und^ 
the skin. I then had my ammunition tested and fomd 
it was “ rotten.” I had changed the sourco’^lrom 
which I had always got it before. ^ 

Hitherto I had got mine always from D. Fraser,^ 
of Edinburgh. It shows how one ought always to 
test one’s ammunition, though this is the only time in 
my life when a gunmaker has let me down. • It is 
remarkable how reliable our gunmakers are iii this 
respect. 

“ Ford Barclay (a cousin of mine who had done 
much big game shooting in the Rockies, the Far East 
of Asia and elsewhere) is staying with me. He told 
me some good lion stories from Somaliland. His , 
first lion fell with his tail on his boots. As an instanc^ 
of Somali pluck, one of his boys held a leopard while ' 
Ford Barclay shot it. This is not quite up to Dela- 
mere’s boy who pulled a lion off Delamere with his; 
bare hands and quite unarmed, and saved Delamere’s' 
life.” 

I hunted and shot till November 2nd, when I 
started for Somaliland. The following April, 1897, 
we were at Locarno, where I was recovering from a 
very bad “ go ” of malaria. During this winter in 
Somaliland I had, without knowing it until long after 
the event, been elected M.P. for Cleveland and was 
again in the House of Commons in May, 1897. 
During this winter the mascot of our expedition was 
a Somali sheep bearing the Somali title of Muthou 
Hamadou, and he marched at our head for one 



220 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

thousand miles and more, twenty miles a day. He 
was such a favourite and escaped so many dangers 
^at we determined to ship him home, unaware of the 
n^w regulations which required the slaughtering of 
all cattle and sheep on landing in England. I had the 
molt , -desperate struggle with Walter Long and the 
Board" 6f Agriculture before he was landed alive and 
"reached my home, where he lived pampered for years. 
His head is on my walls opposite me as I write. I 
shall give an outline of his early life. 

He was lambed on the Plains of Toyo, on the 
Somali Waterless Haud in 1895. In December, 
1 896, we met him two days south of Berbera, marching 
coastwards with a large consignment of other muttons 
destined ultimately to be eaten by Tommy Atkins 
at Aden. I was struck with his independent mien 
'^nd his jet black legs for Somali sheep, which are 
without wool, are usually white with the head and 
feeck only black. I purchased him for rs. 6 (8^.), a 
"big price in those days, and he marched back with us 
"across the Haud into Ogaden, Burka and back to 
Berbera the following year. 

He sailed, after a week in the British Residency, 
to Aden on the s.s. Woodcock and resided in the Hotel 
de I’Europe, Aden, until the B.I. Golconda carried 
him to the Thames, where the fight for his life began. 
The captain of the Golconda helped, for he declined to 
land him, and after six weeks on land and on sea, 
being daily inspected by a veterinary inspector, he 
was given leave to travel round by sea to the Tees. 
There he was, under veterinary and police escort, 
landed at Middlesbrough and escorted nine miles to 
a box in my stables, where he was imprisoned for a 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 


221 


further twenty-eight days, under police and veterinary 
supervision. 

I put in my diary a summary of his travels : 

94 days’ marching. 

5 „ at Berbera. 

i|- „ on s.s. Woodcock, 

6 „ in the Aden Hotel. 

17 „ in the s.s Golconda at sea. 

20 „ in the s.s Golconda in the Thames. 

25 „ on shore in the London Docks. 

3 „ at sea, Thames to Tees. 

I „ Middlesbrough to Pinchinthorpe. 

28 „ solitary confinement. 

Total 2oo|- „ of unparalleled vicissitudes without 
damping the courage of this noble 
sheep. 



Chapter XXXII 


V^IPUS RECORDS AND A TALK WITH SCOTT, 

1897-98 

T he season 1897-98 was a very good one in 
Cleveland, and except for two or three weeks at 
Christmas, when I joined my family at St. Moritz, I 
was alone at home, and hunted regularly. The doctor, 
against my wife’s and my own opinions, sent my wife 
there for the whole winter, and undid the cure that 
had been effected by three years spent mostly in warm 
Wry countries out of doors. 

Vi .The intense cold, the altitude, and the stuffy hotels 
,fVen in three weeks made me quite ill, and though 
there were certainly cases which benefited by being 
there, most of the consumptive people , I knew, did 
hot ; many died, and the moral effect of being among 
dying and ill people is always bad. The winter sports 
were the redeeming feature, and nowhere else was the 
standard of toboganning and bobsleighing so high in 
those days. The full course of the Cresta run is a 
splendid one, and the racing on it worth going to see. 

In 1897 ski-ing was in its infancy in Switzerland. 
There were many very bad accidents that year at 
St. Moritz, and I was in one nasty one in a bob-sleigh 
race with a good crew, but I escaped with only bruises 
while some had broken legs and were badly hurt. We 
ran off the course, and upset among trees at top pace. 



VARIOUS RECORDS 


223 

It was a race in which ladies had to steer. An American 
lady, Mrs. Shepley, was steering our “ boh,” The 
Alligator, and the smash would have been worse’ but‘ 
for her presence of mind. We were at top speed goings- 
down the Cresta road, when suddenly we came on jb 
a team of horses drawing trees up the road. She 
mediately turned the bob up the mountain. If slue nad 
done anything else it would have been a terribleP^ 
accident. She was badly hurt and had a broken leg. 

In my diary I say of this day, November 17th : 

“ Mavrogadato broke his arm on the Village Run, and 
Cook broke his arm on a ‘ bob ’ to-day.” Also for ; 
January 19th is the entry : “ Elton Fox very badly' 
smashed on the Village Run — ^broken ribs, broken 
shoulder and hip.” January 21st: “Village Run 
Races. There was a very bad accident (near where I 
stood), McLachlan, leaving the course at the Belvedere 
Corner, went through the spectators, knocking down 
four ladies, who were nearly killed as well as kiin* 
self. 

“ One of the Miss Forsyth Grants had a leg pul- 
verized at the knee. One man died to-day from an 
accident. . . . Kit’s (my little son, aged eleven) turn-- 
came after McLachlan, and he was kept waiting while the 
course was cleared of dead and wounded. He did a 
fine run, finishing fifth out of thirty-one — by far the 
youngest competitor. Miss Mowbray, a very neat 
performer, won.” 

I came away from St. Moritz feeling one was much 
safer hunting at home than at that place. Our Alligator 
won two races, doing one course in what was said to 
be the record time, two minutes thirty-five seconds. 
We were steered by G. St. Aubyn. In those days it 



224 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

was a long, tedious, cold journey from Thusis with 
sledges to reach St. Moritz, but not uninteresting in 
its way. While I was there I went over to see Andreas 
• Rauch, the noted guide and chamois hunter of Pon- 
ttesina, and went out with him towards the Roseg 
Gjacier and watched chamois through my glass. 

Xhe Swiss have a most detestable system of closing 
^ canton for, say, five to seven years against shooting 
chamois. They then open it for a week or two, when 
the mountains are literally swarming with rifles and 
guns, and the chamois are slaughtered without dis- 
tinction of age or sex, and wiped out. The canton is 
then closed until it is restocked, and the horrible 
massacres are repeated. 

No foreigner is allowed to shoot one ; but Rauch 
said, “ Come with me when it is open and you can use 
;my rifle.” I declined, having no wish to partake in 
these butcheries, or to witness them. , 

I have always had a horror of cold and frost and a 
love of hot, dry climates. You may suffer some dis- 
comfort in very hot climates, but very cold ones are 
actual pain. I have been quite happy and active in 
Africa with the thermometer at 120 deg. Fahr. in the 
shade, and very uncomfortable and slack in India with 
the thermometer at 90 deg. — I have found it the same 
with altitudes. I have found 7000 ft. in Europe and 
9000 ft. in Abyssinia very trying to my heart, and 
7000 ft. in Equatorial Africa very pleasant. 

There are most curious cases of asthma. In the 
Transvaal I knew a doctor who was a terrible martyr 
to asthma, wherever he was, and it was killing him. 
He discovered a kopje about 100 ft. high near Komati 
Poort, no different to a hundred others, on the top of 



VARIOUS RECORDS 22 ^ 

which he was perfectly free from this most disttessing 
malady, and he had to live there. 

I have shaken with cold and had teeth chattering 
in South Africa, when during a thunderstorm the. 
thermometer dropped from loo deg. to 66 deg. Fahr." 
The temperature I prefer in England is 75 deg. to 
80 deg. Fahr., but seldom get it ! ^ ^ 

I have always had a great admiration for those who*^ 
can stand arctic cold, whether at 20,000 ft. or within 
the Arctic Circle, because I know I have been totally 
incapable of bearing it or the discomforts of the life. 
Scott, just before he started on his last fatal expedition, 
came to see me here in Yorkshire, and he was full of 
enthusiasm as we sat in comfortable chairs over the 
fire. He said : “ You do not seem to be much thrilled 
by Arctic exploration. I should have thought that you 
as a sportsman would be excited about it.” 

I replied that to me the thought of all he was going 
to face and suffer was horrible, “ and to discover and 
see what I know exactly what you will find at the 
South Pole. Just an awful waste of snow or ice, and 
hideous cold without life, and death staring at you.” 
He said : “I am surprised ; no one has ever talked 
about it to me like that. I should not have thought it 
of you.” 

It was to him a great adventure. He won through 
with it and met a hero’s death, and gave a lasting 
example of what man can dare, bear and do. Yet it was 
as I said. There was nothing discovered worth a brave 
man’s life, except how such a man can suffer and die. 

I often think of his death. 

This was the Diamond Jubilee summer in England, 
and a gay and busy one it was, but I do not know that 



226 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

there' is, much in the sporting line to record. Galtee 
Moire, the favourite, won the Derby with Lord Rose- 
bery’s Velasquez second. 

Here are one or two entries later in the year : 
August 17th : “ Jack (my brother) and I went up to 
the moor after lunch and had one or two little drives 
In a high gale, and got eleven-and-a-half brace. Chris- 
'•topher (my son, eleven years old) came too, and for a 
joke I put him in a butt with a single barrel .410 
collectors’ gun. Imagine our astonishment when 
several lots of grouse came his way, to see him each 
time cock his little self up and kill a grouse each time 
j he fired!” 

, The killing power of these little guns is really re- 
-markable. When I was collecting birds in Abyssinia 
•shot many great bustards, hares, dik-dik antelopes, 
;-etc., at twenty to thirty yards’ range, by shooting at 
their necks. This August I record the death of our 
'hardest rider and a great horseman, John P. Fetch, of 
Liyerton — a very bad man to beat over any kind of 
country. 

At this time my cousins, Herbert Pike Pease (now 
Lord Daryngton), who is a very tall and broad heavy- 
weight, and his brother, Claud, who is of much smaller 
dimensions, and of a weight that enables him still 
to keep at the top of a hunt, hunted with the Cleve- 
land. 

Claud one morning said to Johnny Fetch : “ Good 
morning, Mr. Fetch.” Fetch looked hard at him and 
said, “ Good morning, sir.” “ You don’t know me, I 
think,” said Claud. “ I do know,” said Fetch, “ that 
you’re a Pease, but there’s that many of you I can’t 
keep count.” “ Well,” said Claud, “ I’m a brother of 



VARIOUS RECORDS 


227 

Pike Pease,” pointing at his big brother. Toil a 
brother of Mr. Pike’s ! Well, that caps owt 1 You 
moost hev been sookin’ blue milk, when he was sookin’ 
creeam I ” said John. 

This August I was shooting at Barningham wi^ 
Sir Frederick Milbank. Of the party were Gener^ 
Hubert, a Russian prince and two Russian princesses^ 
one of the latter ladies shot with us, and Percy Hale, 
a sporting parson, was another gun. I say of one day : 

“ The Princess speaks good English and is very 
pleasant, but I don’t like women out shooting ; they 
are dangerous generally, but more so with a gun in 
their hands. She has already shot the General in the* 
shoulder and hand, and cut Hale’s eyelid ! ” 

I have cut out of a newspaper and inserted it in my»’, 
diary a list of game killed in Somaliland in 1895 By^ 
twenty-nine sportsmen. It includes 26 elephants^" 
79 lions, 49 rhinoceros, 25 leopards, 3 panthers, 
zebras, 5 wild asses, 84 hartebeests, 3 1 greater- kudu, 
250 oryx, 7 ostriches and i giraffe. It also mentions a 
wart-hog with i3j-in. tusks, killed in 1897 by Captain 
Glossop (ist Dragoon Guards). 

Just as I was going out to Styria with Sir E. G. 
Loder I got a telegram to say that my brother-in-law, 
Vincent Calmady-Hamlyn, the last of the male repre- 
sentatives of the Calmady and Hamlyn families, names 
well known in the sporting annals of Devonshire, had 
died suddenly near Leawood, his home. He was out 
riding, and seeing poachers on one of his farms he 
tied his horse to a gate and ran hard after them. As 
he ran he fell dead with his head resting on his arm, 
and exactly as if he was asleep. This altered my 
plans. His only child. Miss Sylvia Calmady-Hamlyn, 



228 half a century of sport 

is well laiown in the West Country, and as a judge and 
breeder of ponies much farther afield. 

After my return from Styria I give accounts of very 
good days with the Cleveland, and of long, poor days 
-with the Hurworth, one with thirty-three miles on the 
road to cover and home. I give a list of fourteen ladies 
, who hunted this season with the Cleveland who were 
“ constant and all tip-top riders.” So much for those 
who tell us that the Victorian ladies were “ no good ” 
at this or anything else. 



Chapter XXXIII 


ABOUT BARBS, ARABIANS, POLO AND OTHERS 
SUBJECTS, 1898-99 

I N January, 1898, I had a fall that, though in no 
sense serious, was a very troublesome one to me, 
I was galloping fast downhill in the furrow of a 
ploughed field on a young blood mare, when she 
cannoned a foot against the side, crossed her legs, came 
down and shot me far over her head on to my hands, 
which were badly damaged. My thumbs were di'Sr^’ 
located and one of them broken. The mare was up 
before I was and galloped over the top of me, hitting 
me in the back, and then someone following galloped 
over me and gave me a black eye ! 

For several weeks I could not use my hands at all, 
and had to be dressed and fed like an infant. It is 
extremely awkward when you cannot even clean your 
own teeth. This fall and several others, on the top 
of having strained my heart, made me very ill this 
spring, and I was sent abroad to rest and to get away 
from all my parliamentary and other work. 

I was absent from the House of Commons Steeple- 
chase at Buckingham in March, but had the satisfac- 
tion of reading in the papers that my brother had come 
in an easy winner on Mr, J. W. Phillips’s Oliver, 
Mr. Raymond Greene on Nameless was second, the 
Hon. Douglas Pennant, M.F.H. on Admiral, third. 



230 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

Sir Samuel Scott on Joan, fourth. Sir Henry Meysey- 
Thompson and the Hon. Greville Verney dead-heated 
for fifth place, closely followed by Lord Willoughby 
d’Eresby, and Mr. Butcher came in last, on the horse 
with which he had won the Bar Point-to-Point. 

In the autumn, when I was at home, after a very 
fine summer, with very hard work, I mention riding 
ihome some ten miles from Westerdale in September 
“ without seeing a living soul.” A year or two 
previously I rode nineteen miles to and nineteen miles 
back from Rosedale, without seeing a single person. 
I allude to this because of the contrast in the rural 
peace and seclusion of the old days with the present 
'time when our moor roads are covered with omni- 
‘buses, charabancs, motor cars and motor cycles. 
Hikers and trippers are seen in every direction, and 
evea the heavens above resound at times with the 
noise of aeroplanes. 

This summer and autumn was the finest and hottest, 
I think, of any I have known since the ’sixties. I put 
down the 5th October, 1898, as “ the hottest day I 
ever shot on in England,” and it remains so. My 
brother-in-law, Gerald Buxton, and I shot most of 
the day, and bagged 30 brace of partridges, 1 7 pheas- 
ants, 7 grouse, besides rabbits and a few hares — ^which 
is a very good bag for two guns in October in Cleve- 
land. 

This winter, 1898—99, we were in the south of the 
French Sahara in the Beni Mzab and south of 
Ouargla. 

During this expedition I had five Barb mares, 
which I bought with great care, which had full tribal 
histories and were true Barbs. These mares I im- 






BARBS, ARABIANS AND POLO 33! 

ported in 1899 and retained until 1902, when through 
the ruin of my fortunes, I had to sell them and the 
rest of my possessions. They were all accepted at 
Weatherby’s in the Oriental section of the General 
Stud Book. They are the only true Barb mares of 
high class I have ever seen in England. Three of 
them were well over fifteen hands. 

The Barb beats the Arabian in size, in action and 
in pace, and resists intense cold as well as he does 
intense heat. If he has not the exquisite beauty of 
the Arabian he has the same courage and the same 
fire. I bought mares for this expedition as they are 
less troublesome in camp and are silent at night, and 
do not betray your presence to marauders. Two of 
these mares were of outstanding merit, perfectly 
broken after the manner of Arabs, and absolute 
perfection as rides. They proved to be first flighters 
when hunting in England, and jumped like stags. The 
first season I hunted them without shoes, for none of 
them had ever been shod, and could gallop on rock 
desert all day, so hard were their beautiful hoofs. But 
they slipped up on greasy hillsides and slippery grass, 
so the second season I shod them, and once shod, 
they had to be shod afterwards. I then bred from 
them. One of these mares, a chestnut, Safia, was 
ridden in the Row, and hunted by my ten-year-old 
daughter. I had ridden her daily during five months 
in the desert. 

You do not touch an Arab-broken horse’s mouth. 
You control by the voice ; you guide by rein or 
hand pressure on the neck, and prefer to take hold of 
an ear, rather than touch the bit, if the horse does 
not pull up to your word. This mare Safia simply 



232 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

went mad if you meddled with her mouth, but a child 
could do what it liked with her, and I often jumped 
on to her bareback with not even a halter on her 
head, and rode her a mile to my farm and back before 
breakfast, opening gates and galloping down the 
fields. 

These mares and their produce were sold for an 
“ old song ” at York in 1902. An M.F.H. bought 
Safia for some such price as fifteen pounds. He said 
that she was “ quite mad ” (although I told him 
children could ride her, and that the gentlest handling 
was necessary), that “ no one could possibly ride her,” 
and I heard he sold her for about five pounds ! Yet 
she was the stuff that is the foundation of the English 
thoroughbred, for it was the true Barb and the English 
racing Galloway which gave the largest and best 
contribution to the English racehorse. 

Among my young stock, which were up for sale at 
York, was a 14.2 grey three-year-old, by Wilfred 
Blunt’s Arabian Ahmar out of the next best of my 
Barb mares. There was not a bid for him. The 
auctioneer sent him back to me, having bought bim in 
at five pounds. I took him with me to South Africa. 
He was the most perfect horse in every way for his 
size that I have ever come across. He had all the 
beauty of his Arabian sire, and the pace, action and 
comfort of the Barb. It cost me thirty-five pounds 
to ship him, and as I had a horse sickness country to 
administer I sold him in the Transvaal at four years’ 
old for two hundred and fifty pounds for stud purposes. 

I mention all this because I have never understood 
why, since the eighteenth century, while amateurs 
of the Arabian have been numerous, the true Barb 



BARBS, ARABIANS AND POLO 233 

has been so entirely 
imported. 

In April, 1899, we were home, and I got the end 
of the hunting season, which finished in May. The 
season’s record with the Cleveland was 29 brace of 
foxes killed in eighty-five days’ hunting — 2 1 brace to 
ground, making 100 foxes accounted for. 

One may say that up to 1900, polo, the most 
fascinating of all games, was within the reach of men 
of quite moderate means, and the Cleveland Polo 
Club, like many others in the provinces, flourished, 
but it was already becoming a game in which the 
highest class ponies brought very big prices, and the 
ponies which hitherto had sufficed for ordinary 
matches were so outclassed that the clubs with owners 
wealthy enough to possess the better ponies could 
alone compete in matches. However good a player 
you may be you are useless on an inferior pony against 
faster and higher class ones, so that most of the country 
polo clubs were gradually killed out. 

Of course such polo as is now played is altogether 
superior and faster than that which satisfied my 
generation, and a modern match is a better spectacle. 

I was so overworked this summer with many things 
outside my parliamentary duties in the North, not to 
mention the Central Chamber of Agriculture, the 
Royal Commission on Horse-breeding, the Royal 
Agricultural Society Council and Committees, and 
many other things in London, that my health broke 
down and I was sent to Bad Nauheim in Germany for 
a long course of treatment. 

I returned home after three months much stronger, 
for when I left London I was too weak to walk up- 

I 


;glected and the best never 



HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


234 

stairs. 'I had another “go” of Nauheim in 1900, 
and to encourage others who have damaged their 
hearts with too great physical exertion, I mention 
that whereas the German doctor whom I was under 
said in 1899 that my heart was “ shattered to pieces,” 
and in 1900 that with care I might live “ two or tree ” 
years, I have lived thirty since he said it. When I 
left him in 1 900, he said, “ What are you going to 
do ? ” I replied, “ We are going through Abyssinia 
to the Sobat and White Nile.” He said, “ Mad ! 
Mad ! ” I retorted that if I had only two years to 
live I was not going to spend them in bed. 

By the end of September I was able both to shoot 
and hunt a little and though far from right I took 
some “ useful tosses ” without much damage to my 
. “ shattered heart.” One of these was a new kind to 
me. I was galloping a thoroughbred horse as hard 
as he could leather down a long smooth grass ride, 
across which was a ten or twelve foot high pheasant 
wire net quite invisible owing to the peculiar light 
between the trees. The sudden stop, with my horse 
. down and all mixed up in the wire, was a curious 
sensation. The horse kicked himself free, and tore off 
a shoe and broke a bit off a hoof, and I escaped with a 
sprained wrist, “ but we were soon going again,” 
says the diary. However, next day the horse was 
lame with a sprained shoulder, a much more serious 
injury than that to my wrist. 

On October 5th I was at the funeral of our late 
M.F.H., John Proud. He was seventy-five. I write, 
“ I shall miss him ; the old standards are dying out. 
I am glad I was born into the tail end of their genera- 
tion. There are still some left, but grey are the frills 



BARBS, ARABIANS AND POLO 235 

under their clean-shaved faces and beipt are their 
broad backs, for the most part,” and I give 4 list of 
them. 

By the end of the autumn session I was too ill to 
hunt or shoot — and sent in my resignation to my 
constituents, which however was not accepted. 



Chapter XXXIV 


SOME RECORDS OF 1899-1900 WITH REFLEC 
TIONS ON DIABOLICAL ENGINES AND POISON 

E arly in 1900 I was able to get out, sometimes 
for two or three hours, but I was in a poor way 
and my journals are mostly filled with politics, the war 
in South Africa, and other even less cheerful subjects. 

The war in South Africa dragged on, as well as the 
one in the Sudan, and the small one in Somaliland. 
The first took what we considered in those days 
heavy toll of our officers. In 1899, and up to Feb- 
ruary loth, our losses in South Africa in killed were 
1 61 officers and 1337 men. These subjects and 
politics take up much of the space in my journals, but 
by January I was well enough to hunt occasionally, 
and enter other doings. 

On January 22 nd I say that there were too many 
badgers in “ Bousdale,” one of our coverts. My 
two sons and I had a “ dig ” with three of our terriers 
and got out between ten and one o’clock “ three 
fine ‘ dog ’ badgers. The biggest was a very large 
one, 33 J lb.” The second heaviest I ever got here. 
“ I sent these to the Hon. N. Charles Rothschild 
as a present.” Charles Rothschild, a great naturalist, 
who died 1923, was busy collecting and identifying 
the "'fleas ” on British mammals, and had hitherto, 
after great success among other animals, failed to 



RECORDS WITH REFLECTIONS 237 

mark down a separate family of badger fleas. He had 
written to me, begging me to try to find some, and 
I had examined my tame badgers and wild ones in 
vain, I did not care much for the job, for flea-hunting, 
without a find, on bouncing badgers, with about the 
same percentage of danger as in fox-hunting, is a 
sport which palls after a day or two. So I sent 
Rothschild these badgers to give him the hunting. 

He eventually discovered the game he was after, 
but whether my badgers or others provided him 
with his scientific trophies I never heard. No doubt 
the “ type specimen ” is in the Tring Museum. 

On January 25th I describe a “ clinking run ” from 
Skelton to Saltburn, and thence to Loftus Wood, 
then to Handale and lost, when the survivors were 
Miss Rutherford, Miss Muriel Newcomen, “ Bill,” 
the first whip, and myself. The Master and several 
others were up at the “ first check ” at Handale. 
This was about a fifteen-miles hunt, hounds hardly 
meddled with all the way, the point being some four 
miles less than this. 

On February loth I record the death, at Hurworth, 
of a noted hunting man and Master of Otter Hounds, 
Tom Wilkinson. “ A really good sportsman, with 
always a cheery word and welcome, when I turned 
up with the Hurworth. He was one of the few remain- 
ing country gentlemen of the type common in my 
youth, living carefully but happily, entirely in the 
country, with homely ways, now out of fashion, 
affecting the local dialect and heading, with his top 
hat on, a large procession of his progeny on the way 
to church every Sunday morning.” 

The same day I mention the death of Martin 



HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


238 

Morrison, of Faceby, “ another cheery kind-hearted 
man^ a good example of a country gentleman, farming 
well', . and welcome everywhere. Though a strong 
Tory and Protectionist, he told me he would not vote 
against me ” (I was Liberal M.P. for Cleveland 
athen). His son, Mr. Martin Morrison, carries on 
'the traditions, and is one of the main pillars of the 
Hurworth Hunt ; and the latter’s sister, Mrs. 
Dorrington, during more than twenty years past, has 
been simply a wonder across country. I have never 
seen a better. 

February brought one of the severest snowstorms 
and blizzards I can remember, yet I got to the Hur- 
worth at Winton on the 24th. 

After a run from this favourite place, Forbes went 

■ back to Winton and found another fox, which he 
would insist had gone to ground — “ it was really 
very funny, for I saw the fox go away under the 
whip’s nose, and in sight of all the field,” but though 
I pointed him out I knew better than to tell Forbes, 
“ with forty people there who had not seen him, only 
to be told to go to a hot place,” so I watched them 
dig “ for nothing ” for an hour or more. We got a 

■ run from Welbury afterwards. 

In March, when hunting with the Essex from 
Gerald Buxton’s, during Charlie Green’s mastership, 
I say, “ The hounds run well, and are a nice pack, 
with a good cry. For the first time in my life I saw a 
barbed-wire country.” 

On March ist, 1900, we in Cleveland lost our 
dear old chief. Squire (J. T.) Wharton of Skelton 
Castle, born March 9th, 1809. Since 1786 there 
had been but two owners of Skelton, John Wharton 



RECORDS WITH REFLECTIONS 239 

and his nephew, the Squire. The latter had been 
our Master from 1870 to 1874, and brought the 
Cleveland Hounds, which had until then 'beeli :a' 
trencher-fed pack, into kennels. . ' 

My father sent me the news to London in' a letter 
in which he said, “ You will not be surprised to heaf., 
that the Old Squire, as he once described it to me, ' 
has ‘ gone to ground.’ He was a dear man. I much 
respected him, so honest, so true and kindhearted.” 
This is a very brief and simple epitaph, but does 
anyone desire a better ? 

I mention hunting in March on “ grey, cold bitter 
days.” I include some “ lively ” ones. 

In April I was in Cornwall and picked up three 
very perfect old man-traps. One was the most 
diabolical I had ever seen. It was very powerful, 
with big teeth and had a long iron rod fixed to one 
row of teeth, with a short dagger on the end of the 
rod which, when the trap was struck, sprung up with 
terrible force and would stab a man just about his 
liver. I gave all these to Sir Edmund Loder for his 
museum. 

I just remember, long after these horrible engines 
became illegal, an old notice-board at Skelton Ellers' 
on which you could just read, “ Beware of man traps 
and spring guns.” I know a place in Cleveland, 
where two perfect specimens of the spring-guns are 
preserved. They are very curious and ingenious 
weapons on swivels, and it would puzzle most people 
to find out their purpose. 

I have known people in Africa set ordinary guns 
and rifles as “ spring guns ” for lions, leopards and 
hyaenas. I think them most dangerous ; I knew 



240 half a century of sport 

one man in Kenya who had set one for a leopard, 
who walked into his own wire and had his knee 
shattered. He died after several operations in Nairobi 
Hospital. I heard him screaming there before he died, 
and the thing has haunted me ever since. 

; I have never countenanced these most unsporting 
methods, and have known such awful things hrppen 
from using strychnine that I consider it should be a 
criminal offence to use it. I knew a case in Kenya 
where a settler shot a kongoni (hartebeeste) and put 
strychnine in it. Some natives found the freshly 
killed hartebeeste, carried off the meat, and nine of 
them died most horrible deaths. One man I knew well 
put strychnine into a zebra to poison hyaenas ; I forget 
how many hyaenas were poisoned, but his dogs ate 
, part of the poisoned hyaenas and also died horrible 
'deaths. 

One friend of mine who poisoned a zebra on his 
farm said, “ I shall never do such a thing again, for 
when I went the next morning, there were innumerable 
birds, vultures, some jackals and hyaenas and ten lions 
lying dead. I was horrified at what I had done.” 

Early in May I was sent off to Nauheim again. 
There were in those days some thirteen thousand or 
more people a year who went to Bad Nauheim with 
heart disease, but there were few whom I knew among 
the crowd. There was, however, a friend of my boy- 
hood, Charlie Orr Ewing, and his wife. Lady Augusta, 
and one or two others with whom to talk over memories 
and current events. Charlie Orr Ewing was younger 
than I was, but Nauheim did little for him and he died 
soon after his return home. His brother, Jimmy, 
was my age and we had been at Cambridge together, 



RECORDS WITH REFLECTIONS 24 1 

where he was a hard rider, and often out with the 
Drag ; we called him “ The Weasel.” While his 
brother and I were at Nauheim he was killed in action 
in South Africa. He had been a major in the i6th 
Lancers, A.D.C. to Lord Londonderry when he was 
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and afterwards to Lord 
Roberts. There may be others living beside myself 
who remember him as boy and man. 

In July I was back in London, and my cousin, 
Mr. A. E. Leatham, had just returned from British 
East Africa. I say he has got trophies of “ some 
twenty-four varieties of big game there but, like the 
sportsman he is, not more than about two good heads 
of each.” I mention this because I recorded a con- 
versation I had with old Peachey (a good taxidermist 
to whom Leatham and I generally sent most of our 
heads to be set up) when I was looking over Leatham’ s 
trophies. 


I* 



Chapter XXXV 


THE TRIALS OF OLD PEACHEY— ABYSSINIA 
AND NOTES, 1900-01 

I WAS in London in July and visited old Peachey, 
the taxidermist, to look over my cousin’s, Mr. A. E. 
Leatham’s, trophies from British East Africa. 

In the midst of these Peachey was standing. I 
asked him how he was. “ Oh, I’m pretty fair for an 
hold man, sir. I down’t knowe if I be seventy-nine or 
hoity-one, but I am as good as my son ’ere. I’ve ’ad 
a.,lot o’ trubble too ; yer see, sir, I lost my son — ^you’d 
’ear of that, sir, ’ow ’ee died in the ’sylum.” 

No, I had not heard. 

“ Well, you see, sir, it wos this wye. ’Eee dies in 
the ’sylum after I pyde fifteen pounds a year for ’is 
keep there. Now, wot does the bloomin’ guardians do 
but they tykes all my son’s syvings from the bank — 
sixty pounds — all money syved from the ten bob a 
week which I alius allowed him — all money ’ardly 
earned by myself. I employs a lawyer to stop this. 

“ Now they sez, ‘ Peachey, you better give hup goin’ 
to law ’as you’ll only chuck good money hafter bad.’ 
Very ’ard, isn’t it, sir ? Yer see, that’s ’ow they treats 
yer. Then I loses my missus, an’ then I finds out that 
she’d lent fifty pounds to one woman and fifty pounds 
to another woman, an’ the lawyer he sez, ‘ It ain’t no 
use, Peachey, tryin’ to get it back, has they ’aven’t got 



OLD PEACHEY AND ABYSSINIA 243 

it.’ Very ’ard, isn’t it, sir ? Well, I was just tellin’ this 

to Cap’n ’ I forget his nyme — but a werry jocular 

gentlemen — ^you know him, I think — but I. Can’t get 
his nyme. Well, I tells ’im of the women gettin’ this 
money, an’ ’ee says, ‘ Oh, damn the women, Pbachey 1 
They’ve ’ad me lots o’ times.’ Them was his words,’. 
‘ Damn the women, Peachey, they’ve ’ad me lots o’ 
times.’ 

“ I wish I could remember ’is nyme. The first time 
’ee comes in ’ere ’ee says, ‘ I’ve been at Singapore, an’ 
afore that hat Kandahar — ^you know them plyces, 
Peachey ’ I says, ‘ No, sir, I down’t know ’em.’ 

“ ‘ ’Aven’t yer any relytions there, Peachey ’ 

‘ Well, sir,’ I says, ‘ I ’ave if there’s hanyone there as 
’as got anythink for me, but if they wants hennythink 
I know nothin’ about ’em.’ 

“ That’s wot I says, and ’ee says, ‘ Peachey, PI! 
never forget yer as long as I live ! Peachey, do yer go 
to Church } ’ I says, ‘ Yes, sir, I goes.’ ‘ Well,’ sez 
’ee, ‘ I expect yer gets hout afore the collection.’ 

‘ Well,’ sez I, ‘ it’s this way, sir, I got a bad cough, 
an’ when I sees ’em cornin’ round with the bag I often 
has a bad cough, an’ I down’t like to disturb ’em, an’ 
I does go out.’ 

“ I wish I could remember ’is nyme — ^he was a 
very jovial officer — he leaves four gryte helephant 
feet with me to sell. I keeps ’em ’ere some years, an’ 
one dye. Sir ’Enery Meux comes hin an’ wants to buy 
’em — he hoffers fifteen pounds for ’em, but the Cap’n 
wouldn’t tyke it.” (Here Peachey crushed a great 
insect which hopped out of Ted Leatham’s skins, 
saying, “ That’s one of Mr. Leatham’s.”) 

“ 'Ee says, ‘ Lor’ bless yer, Peachey, they cost more 



244 CENTURY OF SPORT 

nor that gettin’ ’em down ter the cowst.’ So I keeps 
’em, another year, an’ when ’ee comes in agen, I says, 

‘ W’en are yer goin’ to tyke these ’ere helephant feet 
awye, sir ? ’ 

“ ‘ Well, Peachey,’ ’ee says, ‘ I arsks my mother to 
let me send ’em ’ome the other dye, but wot do yer 
think she says, “ I don’t want no more of yer damn 
rubbishy ’ That’s wot ’ee said, she says to him, just, 

‘ I don’t want no more of yer damn rubbish.’ So he 
says, ‘ Myke two of ’em hup.’ So I mykes one of ’em 
into a bootiful stool with velvet cretown an’ bright 
metal band — an’ the other inter a lydie’s workbasket 
— ^very bootiful they wos ; but lor’ bless yer, Mr. 
Pease, there warn’t no profit in ’em for me.” 

I like to remember this good workman and honest 
character. Where is the naturalist to-day who will 
mount your greater kudu heads and any others at 
ten shillings apiece 

The winter of 1900-01 we spent chiefly in the 
southern regions of Abyssinia and Galla countries 
subject to the Abyssinians. There was in those days 
no railway even to the Province of Harrar, and it was 
a long march from Zaila on the Somali coast through 
Somaliland and the Danakil country to reach Addis 
Ababa, the capital. We left Zaila on November 9th 
and reached Addis Ababa on December 30th, after 
forty-one marches and forty-one camps. 

It is strange to think that you can now sit in a train 
and do the journey (from Djibouti) in about as many 
hours ! Yet to the naturalist and sportsman this 
journey provided an extraordinary variety of interest 
and we were not without plenty of adventures and new 
experiences, some of which were unpleasant enough, 




PEASE AND GUNBEARERS— ABYSSINIAN SOMALILAND, 1897 




OLD PEACHEY AND ABYSSINIA 245 

but as I have written a whole volume about this winter 
and the spring of 1 900 spent in these countries I shall 
not say much about it here. 

I give in the volume referred to much information 
about the country, its peoples and animals, and a list 
of 687 species of Abyssinian and Somali birds. I 
collected about eight hundred specimens of birds my- 
self, including some new species. 

I missed the chance of the distinction of getting the 
first Mountain Nyala, in a district a day north of Lake 
Zwai. I spent about half an hour within one hundred 
yards of four or five seen through trees, discussing 
with my shikari whether they were greater kudu, with 
a poor male, waterbuck or bush-buck. In the end I 
did not shoot at the male, which appeared to me to be 
too small for an immature kudu and with quite a 
different coat, and yet he was neither a bush-buck nor 
a waterbuck. It never entered my head that it might 
be a new species. It was not until 1910, when Mr. Ivor 
Buxton and the late Mr. M. C. Albright brought some 
specimens home that this species of nyala was dis- 
covered to science. 

The only other nyala is the South African one, 
which was not uncommon in Swaziland in the years 
when I was in the Eastern Transvaal. 

I pass over the summer of 1901 after getting back 
to England. I see we began cub-hunting at the end 
of August. Harvest was early for these parts this year. 
I began mine on August loth and all was cleaned up 
and stacks finished by September 7th. 

On one day in November I record the deaths of 
three centenarians, which I put down as a “ natural 
history note ” — two of these had lived in three cen- 



24-6 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

turies. The first is Mrs. Elizabeth Hanbury, a con- 
nection of my family’s, and the widow of Cornelius 
Hanbury. She was born June 9th, 1793, and was 
108 years and 144 days old. She remembered George 
III, she wrote a poem on the Battle of Trafalgar when 
the news of it arrived, and as a child watched the cows 
when walking in Moorfields, where Finsbury Circus 
is now. 

The second is the Dowager Lady Carew, born on 
December and, 1798, and who, as Miss Cliffe, married 
in 1816 Mr. R. S. Carew. She was 103. The third 
is a Cleveland man, William Hall, born November 5th, 
1801, who had been steward to Squire Maynard, of 
Skinningrove Hall. He died November 15th, 1901. 

This November I got about on crutches, having 
broken a leg in October jumping a post and rails on 
foot ; this was the fourth time I had broken a leg and 
was not to be the last. I got out hunting on November 
1 8 th and relate that a pony of Watt’s out at grass (now 
Colonel Alex-Fitzgerald Watt, D.S.O., then residing 
at Guisbrough), as we ran past Guisbrough, jumped 
the iron rails of the field he was in and joined the glad 
throng and kept it up for miles. “ The last I saw of 
him was standing on the top of High Cliff Nab (a 
rocky eminence one thousand feet high) admiring the 
view from the edge of the cliff.” 

I always considered that the best, highest and most 
difficult pheasants in England were the ones sent over 
the guns from Hanging Stone and the hill tops of 
Hutton and Pinchinthorpe, for they were not only 
very high and fast, but divers and twisters. I see guns 
on November 21st and 22nd shot 562 of these. The 
party included my father, Mr. William Innes Hopkins 



OLD PEACHEY AND ABYSSINIA 247 

(septuagenarians), Frank Baker Baker, Chas. Back- 
house of Wolsingham, the late Sir Arthur F. Pease, 
Lloyd Pease and myself. All but the last-nanied and 
I are gone ; also the pheasants — ^for these sporting 
shootings have been derelict for years. 

“ November 25th. . . . We had out to-day a tail-- 
less hound, ‘ Bobbie,’ from Lord Galway’s. He was • 
run over by the Scotch express near Bawtry and turned 
into a monkey.” 

In December I had a bad fall, and because this 
country was then lamentably behind others in regard 
to “ X-ray ” equipment, the fact that I had broken my 
shoulder was not discovered for months, and I had 
more than a year’s pain and bother with it. 



Chapter XXXVI 


INDIA IN igoi— PYTHONS, BABOONS AND 
HORNBILLS 

M y hunting season was short, as at the end of 
February, 1901, I was in Southern India. It 
had been an unfortunate one for me, for riding with a 
broken shoulder and useless arm was very uncomfort- 
able, and in this condition I took another nasty toss 
and hurt my face and sprained my neck, having no right 
hand to save myself with. My second boy also had a 
terrible accident out hunting. 

My almost lifelong friend, the late Colonel B. H. 
Philips, was hunting with me for a few weeks this 
winter. After his first day with “la famille Pease,” 
and witnessing one of us up to the saddle top in an 
unsuspected farm pond on the landing side of a 
fence, my brother going head over heels over another 
obstacle, one of my boys taking a couple of falls, and 
my groom rolling over and over in a mud hole so that 
he was all mud and not a feature of his face visible, 
laughed the whole evening over what he called the 
new “ Jack Myttons’ ” performances. 

At the end of the year I was very dissatisfied with 
the Accident Insurance Companies, as I only got 
thirty pounds compensation for severe injuries, whereas 
if I had lain in bed and given up my work and activities 
I should have got a substantial sum. The company 
I was insured in had badgered me and bargained 



INDIA IN 1901 249 

over every accident I had had, and declined to insure 
me further, and I could not find a company under 
these circumstances which would take me. One 
alone said they would accept me, but excluded my right 
leg, as it had been broken three times, also steeple- 
chasing, big game hunting, and other things — so I 
have ever since been without accident policies. 

My experience of them was not satisfactory. If 
you insure for this purpose the thing to do is to insure 
in a number of companies and have just one good 
accident and lose both your legs or something like 
that! “ Claims liberally and promptly met ” is all 
“ my eye.” 

At Bombay I went to the Museum in order to ask 
Mr. Phipson, the curator there, to give me some 
guide-book to the Southern Indian birds, and spent 
some fascinating hours with him. Two interesting 
things I may mention — the one was a python which 
had recently swallowed his mate, a very much larger 
and longer python. It had taken him, I think, a 
fortnight to get the head of his companion swallowed, 
but the long length of the rest of his meal went down 
pretty easily. 

A python, after he has swallowed a goat or antelope, 
goes many months before he requires another meal. 
I have never seen Indian pythons as large as some I 
saw in South Africa. I have shot big pythons in 
Africa, but I do not think any were twenty feet in 
length, though I was with a Captain Elphick at 
Malalane in the Transvaal, who shot one twenty-seven 
feet long, and I once passed within a few feet of an 
immense one coiled up on a mountain there, but I did 
not disturb him. 



250 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

I was once talking to a Boer who thought he could 
stufF me as an imported “ tenderfoot,” and he asked 
me if I knew how to catch baboons. I said that I did 
not. He then told me that the best way was to get a 
number of large pumpkins and make holes in each of 
them just large enough for a baboon to get his hand 
through, then to extract the interior pulp through this 
hole and place a prickly pear in the empty pumpkin as 
bait, and then to put the pumpkins in a mealie field, 
and hide yourself near. The baboons would come 
trooping down and peep into the pumpkins, put 
their hands in through the holes, grasp, and never 
leave go of the prickly pears, and as they could not 
withdraw their hands with the pears in them and 
could not get away with the great pumpkins, you could 
knock them all on the head with a club or knobkerry. 

I said it was a very good plan, and asked him if 
he knew how they caught pythons in India. He said, 
“ No.” I told him that the villages had mud walls 
round them, and that you made holes in the mud 
walls just big enough for pythons to pass through, 
and pegged down a pig on each side of the hole. 
When the python came along he swallowed the pig 
outside the wall, and seeing through the hole another 
on the other side, he passed through the hole far 
enough to reach this pig, and swallowed it also ; and 
then he could neither get forward nor back. 

I finally scored off him when he asked me if I had 
ever seen “ Kameels.” The Boers call almost all 
big game animals by wrong names — a hippopota- 
mus is a “ sea-cow,” a leopard a “ tiger,” a hyaena a 
“ wolf,” and giraffes are “ Kameels.” I said I had 
not only seen thousands of “ Kameels,” but hadridden 



INDIA IN 1901 251 

them hundreds of miles. He cried, “ Gott Almachtig !” 
and ran out of my office, informing a member of my 
staff that the new “ magistraat ” had told him incred- 
ible things and that he feared he was a liar. 

But to his amazement they told him that it was 
true that I had often ridden “ Kameels.” This Boer 
had actually seen giraffe and elephants on the site-, 
of Barberton, the town in which I was talking to him. 

I have come across no birds of equal intelligence to 
the hornbills, or with such marked human affinities. 
There was a delightfully tame and companionable 
great ground-hornbill belonging to a friend of mine 
in the Barberton district which was a delight to be 
with, and which seemed to understand everything 
you said and replied with sympathetic and expressive 
noises. He would walk with you and share your 
interest in any object which arrested your attention. 

Phipson, at the Bombay Museum had a large 
Indian hornbill, not nearly as large as the great 
African ground-hornbills. I write in my diary : 

“ Nothing delighted me more than his pet hornbill, 
a most sagacious, accomplished and affectionate 
bird. His manners were good, for after every fig 
or bit of banana which we gave him, he came and 
first offered it to his master before swallowing it ; his 
quickness in catching things was most marvellous ; 
you might throw a fig or a tennis ball as hard as 
ever you could at him across the large room, and 
he would never miss it, but caught it “ clean ” in 
his great beak every time. He has never drunk 
water nor any other liquid during the eight years 
he has been there.” 

In 1900-01, I saw many of the still larger 



HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


252 

African hornbills, Bucorax ahyssinicus. I often watched 
them with great amusement, in Abyssinia, strolling 
about in small companies of two to four individuals or 
sitting in low trees. It is a much bigger and a more 
remarkable bird than the Transvaal Bucorax cafer 
(the Brom-vogel of the Boers, called Intsingizi by 
the Kaffirs) which I saw in larger flocks than its 
Abyssinian relative. 

They seemed to feed in the same way as the Indian 
one, throwing up in the air any piece of food they had 
decided to swallow and catching it in their great 
mandibles, but their diet was not fruit, but ground 
insects, snakes, lizards, rats, mice and even tortoises. 
Their queer monotonous boom-boom note can be 
heard at a great distance, and the Kaffirs regard them 
with a certain superstition and blame them for 
droughty weather. I collected five other kinds of 
hornbills in Abyssinia besides the giant kind. 

The Maharaja of Kolhapur whose guests we were 
for some time, had amongst other curious animals 
a trained, lynx for hunting small game, guinea fowl 
and the like. It had a little bullock cart and two 
attendants always to wait on it and to manage it. 
I never saw a fiercer little brute, unless it was the 
Scotch wild cat. 

I had some days in the jungle after tigers with 
Colonel Ferris, with whom we were staying at the 
Residency, and at the Fort of Panhala. I only saw 
one and never got a shot, as he went to Ferris, who 
hit him twice, but he escaped in dense covert. 

I enjoyed these days, and seeing sambur and other 
creatures, but as sport, shooting as we did from 
machans, it appeared to me as a very safe and simple 



INDIA IN 1901 253 

way to kill dangerous game, even safer than from 
elephants. On the other hand I regard it as a more 
dangerous game to go after tigers alone on- foot than 
to tackle lions that way, for the tiger seems to me a 
more sneaking, skulking and ferocious beast with 
more of the character of the leopard. 

One of my ambitions in India was to kill a bison, 
and I had several chances, but I could not for the life 
of me in thick trees tell the bulls from the cows, and 
it was a terrible thing to kill a cow. Yet I had the 
satisfaction of seeing these immense creatures several 
times, and once had a bunch of them within a few 
yards, but fear of killing a cow made me refrain from 
shooting. 

I got one big sloth bear in a drive, and I was sur- 
prised to find the natives considered the bears much 
more dangerous than tigers, as they are bold and 
attack unprovoked. Certainly my bear came shuffling 
along, as fast as he could, straight to me, though I 
was in the open on foot. 

Bapu Saheb, the Maharaja’s brother, told me this 
day the following story : “ Some years ago in this 
jungle a native jungle woman was passing with her baby, 
when she saw a big bear digging deep in the ground 
for ants. She was afraid, and said to herself that if 
the bear found out she was there, and so near, he 
would kill her and her child. So she tied the babe 
in a tree and then jumped on to the bear when his 
head was deep in the ground, and knelt on him. 
With her legs she kept his head in the hole and kept 
screaming for help. 

“ This soon arrived ; her husband, brother and 
two men coming on the scene with clubs and sticks. 



HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


254 

They told her to get off the bear and that they would 
kill him. She consented, but when she took her 
legs off the bear he was quite dead, having been 
smothered.” 

This summer and autumn was one of tragedies 
and strange experiences for me, with much to do. 
It was the Coronation year of King Edward, and 
the King’s illness caused the postponement after 
immense preparations had been made to celebrate it, 
and great personages had arrived from all parts of 
the world. I did something towards entertaining 
Ras Makonnen, with whom I had spent some time 
at Harrar the year before. He told me that he was 
glad “ to find one face he knew,” as he spent his 
lonely days watching the London traffic from his 
miserable quarters in Victoria Street, meanly provided 
by the Government, 

I also entertained in London and at home the 
Maharaja of Kolhapur and his suite. He had given 
me a tough job : to find six blue roan coach-horses 
to make sure that he would have the most striking 
four-in-hand at the approaching grand Durbar at 
Delhi. He had set his heart on this colour and that 
they should be mares, as he was sure no other team 
would be like this, and being mares he could breed off 
. them. I could not find them, but Mr. John Lett, of 
Rillington, succeeded in this truly difficult task, and 
the Maharaja had the satisfaction of driving them 
here before I got them shipped to Bombay. He was 
a very good whip, and they were a remarkably smart 
lot. 

He was fascinated with English country life, but 
the thing which Cjscited him most was the multitude 



INDIA IN 1901 25^ 

of rabbits, and he longed to have them and English 
hares swarming over his State. 

In all his silks and finery he waded among nettles 
and thistles, and would crawl through and clamber 
over thorn fences, to look down the rabbit holes. 
He wanted to see whether, if he had them in Kolhapur, 
cats and foxes could get down the holes and kill the 
rabbits. I should have liked to photograph him on 
his face with his arm down the burrows. 





Chapter XXXVII 

LIFE IN SOUTH AFRICA, 1903-05 

M y brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Fowler, so often 
my companion in field sports, was killed in one 
of the last actions of the South African War, in April, 
and then in the autumn financial ruin overtook my 
father and myself, and I had to retire from Parliament, 
part with everything, and start a new chapter in my 
life. I shall leave this year alone, and begin anew 
with 1903. 

Thus the June of that year found me in Pretoria. 
My diaries describe my gloomy view of the prospect 
of spending the rest of my life in South Africa, for I 
had left England with small hope of ever returning. 
I say : “ Seen from the train the country we have 
passed through in the fifty-two hours from Cape Town 
is a mixture of North Africa and Abyssinia divested 
of all that is picturesque or romantic. 

“ It is a desert without oases, camels and Arabs, 
without even gazelles or the magic touch of the Orient. 
Again it is Algeria, with Kaffirs in dirty European 
dress instead of burnoused or gaily clad natives. 
Barbed wire, corrugated iron, biscuit-and paraffin- 
tin-built shanties replace Arab houses and Moorish 
villas among their palm trees. It is, in fact, all that 
is worst in Africa mingled with all that is worst in 
Europe.” 



SOUTH AFRICA, I903-05 2^7 

Of the years 1903 to 1905, which I spent in the 
Eastern Transvaal, I shall not have a great deal to 
say here. I came to regard them in many ways as 
the most interesting and satisfactory of my life. 

I had chosen a district quite unlike the country I 
have just described ; for it was one of great mountains, 
forests, bush-veld, rivers, and valleys. 

The hills were covered in many places with begonias, 
gladioli, red hot pokers, agapanthus and other lilies, 
flowers of every hue and lovely things. The insects 
and butterflies were as marvellous as the flowers, 
the reptiles were almost as varied ; some were curious 
and some gorgeous in colouring, such as certain snakes, 
lizards and chameleons. 

The larger wild animals were not very numerous 
outside the great Sabi Game Reserve, where big 
game abounded, but were a delight to me when I 
came across them in my long rides across the country. 
I often saw vaal rhebok and klip-springers on the 
heights, also rooi rhebok on some hills. Reed buck 
and impala were common, as were duikers and steinbok. 
There were hippo in the Komati River and strange 
creatures such as ant-bears, pangolins, bush-babies, 
as well as baboons, wild dogs, monkeys and crocodiles. 
It was a paradise for an ornithologist, and I have 
never been in any region which could boast such a 
variety of the most delicious fruits — in fact, no one 
knows what fruit is until they have lived in such 
places as the Barberton district. 

Yet where Nature made a Garden of Eden for six 
months of the year, there, on the other hand, was the 
serpent ; literally in such shapes as the deadly mamba, 
the ugly puff adder or the splendid python ; and 



258 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

metaphorically in that it was a land of disease and 
death. No domestic animals could live in it. Horses 
died of horse-sickness ; it took 345 horses a year to 
mount the 90 mounted men in my police, and at times 
75 per cent of all my European police were down with 
fever. 

Mules were no better, and all the donkeys died of 
biliary fever or of weird diseases such as one in which 
all their hoofs rotted off. Sheep could not live, and 
poultry survived in small quantities, nearly all being 
eaten up by ticks and parasites. As for man, he rarely 
reached old age, for malaria, dysentery and enteric 
were rampant. At forty-six I was regarded as “ the 
old man ” at headquarters. 

I had a district about the size of Yorkshire to 
administer and once a month used to hold a session 
in a red-hot tin court house in Komati Poort. 

In the evening I used to fish for tiger fish in the 
Komati River. 

The tiger fish is a game and splendid fighter, but 
has teeth like a shark’s. You have to use a gimp cast, 
and this coarse tackle adds a difficulty to catching him. 

When fishing, I often saw zebra on the slopes of 
the Lebombo opposite me, and had the company of 
innumerable birds, and of the sand grouse and long- 
tailed doves, which came at evening time to drink. 
The tiger fish is a brilliant striped fish, and the most 
sporting one in my experience of North, East, Equa- 
torial and Southern Africa. 

I have never seen such rain as occasionally fell at 
Komati Poort (I have known nine inches in the day), 
nor such fever. My district surgeon there. Dr. 
Bostock, called me to a case where a Kaffir was still 



SOUTH AFRICA, I903-O5 259 

living with blackwater fever with a temperature of 
1 13 degrees F. This will- not be ciredited in England, 
but it is a fact. 

Among many remarkable characters in my district 
was one Sanderson, of Logogot, a fine specimen of 
a Scotch colonist, who had an intimate acquaintance 
with the fauna of the wild country where he lived his 
lonely life. He had actually reared and tamed, wild 
dogs (^Lycaon), and had a pack of them, which he hunted. 
This is the greatest feat in that line that I ever heard of. 

In his early days he had shot white rhinoceros and 
said their hide, unlike the black rhinoceros’s, cut 
into th^! best of all sjamboks, as supple as hippo hide. 
When I was in South Africa there were only thirteen 
white rhinos left, and they were in the Zululand Game 
Reserve. 

At the Barberton Races in 1904 I rode my last 
hurdle race on a nice half-bred belonging to one 
Hotchkiss. The so-called “ hurdles ” were very 
high timber jumps, with timber 4 in. in diameter, 
and quite unbreakable. I rode nearly a stone over 
the weight, which was 9 st. 5 lb., and finished second. 
The pace of this race was far too hot for my mount, 
as ail the other horses were thoroughbreds, the best 
of which came down at the last fearful obstacle uphill, 
and half killed their jockeys. 

In my journal I say : “ I considered that I had 
done very well at my age and weight, but Hotchkiss 
complained that I had not ridden Roland out ; if 
he had been on him the last furlong he would have 
known better. He said I had not used whip or spur, 
as if I did not know when it was of use to use either ; 
all the flogging in the world would not have got 



26 o half a century of sport 

another half-length out of him, and he was beaten 
by six lengths.” Roland died, like other horses, of 
horse-sickness soon after. 

When Lord Milner had left South Africa, I soon 
resigned my appointment and came home, but before 
doing so took a month out of the three months’ leave 
due to me, which I spent in the Orange Colony at 
Lady Brand, Ficksburg, and in the Brandwater 
Basin. 

In the last district I spent a day with a very old 
“ Vortrekker ” called Olivier, who had in the early 
days come into the Orange Free State with the first 
Boers. He described to me the myriads of quaggas, 
wildebeests, springbok, mountain zebras, hartebeestes, 
etc., which covered the land. I said it was a pity that 
they had all been exterminated : he replied : “ We 
did not exterminate them. If all the Boers had shot 
all day every day of their lives they could have made 
no impression on their numbers.” 

This I believe to be in a general sense true, for I 
know that in East Africa the game was there in such 
immense quantities twenty years ago that man could 
not make any impression on their numbers, nor 
possibly kill a tithe of the numbers killed by lions 
alone. I reckoned that some twenty thousand head 
of zebras, kongoni and other game was killed each 
year by lions within sight of my house, on the Athi 
and Kapiti Plains. 

What happens is this : the presence of colonists 
drives off the game from pastures and water, and 
particular herbage necessary for the existence of 
many species, and the game moves to less suitable 
regions and succmnbs to unsuitable conditions, or 



SOUTH AFRICA, I9O3-O5 26 1 

are so reduced as to be easily exterminated. Thus 
many species die out. 

Yet animals like rhinoceros, elephants, giraffes 
and the less abundant species of antelopes can be, 
and are, reduced to vanishing point by man’s attacks 
on them. The rarer a species becomes, the more 
eager is the hunter to get it. On my place in Kenya, 
neither I nor anyone else ever once shot an eland, 
for example, nor a giraffe, yet after three or four 
years there were none of these, except “ visitors ” on 
my farm. 

I had a next-door neighbour who killed eight 
hundred zebras on his one thousand acre farm in a 
year, and you could see no diminution in their num- 
bers. They literally drove him off his farm, so hopeless 
was his struggle with them. A few hundred zebras 
stampeded by a troop of lions will level your wire 
fences and crops and knock over anything. 

Once a year at least when I was in the Transvaal 
I had to inspect Major Hamilton’s police post ; this 
involved a journey across eighty kilometres of un- 
inhabited and, after the first few miles, waterless 
bush country, to reach Sabi Bridge. Nearly all this 
rather strange and adventurous journey I used to do 
through the night, and as it was all game reserve, and 
all lion country, I got in the early hours after dawn, 
and in the evening, some thrilling sights of game 
and wild dogs, heard lions, and was kept on the 
qui vive through the dark hours. 

The Transvaal is the only country in which I have 
seen the South African bush pig and there he was , a 
very large, handsome and striking animal. He has 
received scanty attention from writers, and I know 



262 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

of no Specimen in any museum. There were, and 
still are, lions outside the Game Reserve, and they 
run larger than in Equatorial Africa. I should 
think my friend. Major James Stevenson Hamilton, 
who has had charge of the Reserve for some thirty 
years, has alone on foot killed more lions than any 
other man has ever killed.^ I regard him as the 
greatest authority on big game south of the Equator, 
and even beyond that. 

If it had not been for him, after the War in 1 902, it 
is certain that the rhinoceros, buffalo, elephant and 
giraffe would long since have been extinct in the 
Barberton District, and probably eland, sable, antelope 
and some other species as well. To-day anyone 
can visit the Kruger National Park (as the reserve is 
now called) and see hundreds of head of big game in 
great variety. In my time it was very inaccessible 
and very uninhabited country. A railway now traverses 
it, and anyone can visit in comfort this natural zoo. 

^ 1 He had by 1931 killed over 200 lions and more than 150 of these he killed by 
himself on foot. 



Chapter XXXVIII 


ENGLAND, THE ORKNEYS, HUNGARY AND 
THE SUDAN, 1905-06 

I N 1 905 I was back in England for a while, without 
being able to find a billet, with my home let to 
others, and with scanty funds. I lived in lodgings, 
and had a small flat in London. Later in the year I 
enjoyed staying with relations and friends in the 
country and also shooting in Yorkshire and Scotland. 

I was on the island of Hoy in the Orkneys in Septem- 
ber when my cousin, the late Sir Arthur F. Pease had 
the shooting over a part of the island. 

The island is the most striking of the Orkneys 
because its high red cliffs descend abruptly into the 
sea and are broken off into “ stacks.” It is treeless 
save for some stunted rowan bushes in some of the 
ravines, and rocks. The hills are of no great altitude, 
but rising out of the sea they display their full height. 
The hamlets at Orgill and Rackwick are in their 
primitive condition, turf-roofed stone huts standing 
in plots of turnips and oats. The inhabitants are 
crofters, quiet, slow, stunted, weather-worn creatures. 

From the frequency of the surname of Mowat I 
should say they are very much inbred. Among those 
I talked to I only found one who had “ travelle,d.” 
This old Mowat said that he had once been to sea 
and had voyaged as far as Wick 1 



264 half a century of sport 

The grouse shooting is very poor ; a long tramp 
on the sodden hillsides will yield a gun a bag of 2 or 3 
brace. The grouse seem too wet and cold to get up 
until you shoo them up. On the other hand the wild 
rock pigeons which abound on the cliffs will take the 
conceit out of you when they are flighting from 
inland to their home, darting and dashing in, in a 
gale, in the late afternoons. It is about the quickest 
work for a gun I have ever seen. 

There are some snipe, duck and golden plover. 

“ September ist. Arthur and I had a long tramp 
before lunch for a few snipe and five pigeons — too 
wild and wet after lunch. Saw seals, and ducks in 
variety, including eider, skuas, cormorants, dotterels, 
guilemots, herons and many other sea fowl.” 

“ September 4th. ... I watched seals on the 
Skerries the whole afternoon ; there were on one rock 
twelve old ones. At first they were on the Outer 
Skerries, and then went bounding across like por- 
poises, in single file, to the Middle Skerries, and 
landed there with their little ones.” I seem to have 
spent many hours on other days watching the seals 
on the rocks and bobbing about within one hundred 
yards of us in the water. 

From Hoy I went to my friend, Mr. George 
Albright, at Drumochter, and had some good days 
grouse driving, and one or two walking the high tops 
for ptarmigan, a thing I have always enjoyed. 

However, I could not go on living on my friends 
indefinitely, and Lady Pease had to winter abroad. 
I had found no employment, and funds were very 
low. We decided to winter on the Island of Capri, 
where I took a delightful little villa fully equipped. 



THE ORKNEYS AND THE SUDAN 26 $ 

on the south side of the island, for a rent of loo lira 
a month. Four of us could live here with two servants 
comfortable on another 350 lira a month. 

The rate of exchange being favourable, this was 
the cheapest existence in Europe, I should think, 
in the way of value for money : and the climate was 
the best winter one I have struck north of the Mediter- 
ranean. The life there was to me, however, more 
tiresome than Elba or St. Helena to Napoleon, for 
there was absolutely nothing to do after the small 
island was explored. 

After two months I went off, in December, with 
an Italian friend of mine, Fred. Meuricoffre, to 
Eastern Hungary and Transylvania, to see the primi- 
-tive gold mining there, in the hope of finding some 
proposition which would yield me employment. The 
cold was intense, but the experience interesting, if 
not fruitful. I saw the tracks of wolves and of big 
stags in the snow in the forests and mountains of 
Transylvania, in the neighbourhood of the mines, 
but saw no game at all. The whole cost of my journey 
from Capri via Ancona, Fiume, Budapest, Felsobanya 
into Transylvania and back, including purchases, 
tips and hotel bills, was eighteen pounds. The zone 
system, by which the farther you go the cheaper it is, 
accounts for this low cost. Fiume to Felsobanya, 
first class, was sixty-three kronen. 

I then returned to the warmer climate of Capri. 
I used to watch at times the detestable pursuit of 
the few remaining robins, and small birds which 
occasionally visited the island, by parties of Italian 
gunners with pointers and nondescript dogs. In 
Italy you are apparently allowed to shoot anything 

K 



266 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

anywhere, except where a notice is up stating that 
“ the chase is forbidden.” 

One day three of these men ranged the mountain- 
side after a single robin for an hour, and the robin 
took refuge in my patch of vineyard, the pursuers’ 
entrance into which I barred. This led to a heated 
altercation in which I dropped my scanty Italian for 
expressive English, and as we had not the slightest 
idea of what each party was saying to the other, they 
at last departed disconsolately, leaving me and the 
robin in peace. 

These people had practically exterminated all the 
seagulls, too. 

I soon embraced a chance most generously offered 
me of going to the Sudan, w;ith Mr. E. N. Buxton and 
his daughter. We had met the previous summer a 
Captain Hodgson, who had told us how to reach the 
country where the addax antelope could be obtained. 
On reaching Cairo in January, 1906, Lord Cromer 
stamped on our plans, and we were diverted to an 
attempt to obtain Mrs. Gray’s waterbuck {Cobus Maria 
Gray), very few of which beautiful species had been 
obtained at this time. At Khartum they were sup- 
posed to be rare and to be found in the swamps of 
Southern Kordofan ; we only had permission to 
kill one specimen each. 

We went up the White Nile and up the Bahr el 
Zeraf and afterwards sailed through Lake No and 
up the Bahr el Ghazal in two sailing nuggers. I have 
seen birds of all sorts in vast numbers, but I believe 
there is nothing in the world to compare with the 
bird life in its immense variety and inconceivable 
numbers on the White Nile. You do not see the 



THE ORKNEYS AND THE SUDAN 267 

same thing up the White Nile tributaries, but there 
are birds in plenty to satisfy any ornithologist, and 
we often met with some of the great whale-billed 
storks {Balinacep rex), one of the most singular birds 
in existence. 

We saw a great deal of big game beside the object 
of our search, and obtained a good many nice heads. 
The elephants I came across when we were in the 
Nuer country carried enormous ivory. I had not a 
licence to kill elephants, and neither could afford one 
nor desired one. Yet I watched for hours one day a 
group of five giants which carried I should say 200 
to 300 lb. of ivory each, say at 17J. a pound, about 
;^iooo worth. 

Giraffe were there too, and there was no lack of 
interest wherever we went. We each got our “ Mrs. 
Gray ” — I saw large numbers of this kob — as many 
as seventy one day — but I kept postponing my one 
shot and in the end got a very nice head, though by 
no means the best which I saw. It is very difficult to 
know when to exercise your leave-to-shoot with a 
limit of “ one.” 

I do not propose to relate our adventures here, 
nor our experiences among the stark-naked giant 
Nuers. We were in one Nuer village where we 
could find no man under six feet eight inches high 
nor any woman under six feet. I had, however, one 
terrifying experience. I have never been really 
terrified hunting big game ; the incidents in hunting 
lions and other dangerous game you have usually 
more or less anticipated in imagination, and they are 
over so quickly, or the business in hand is so absorbing 
that fear does not get much hold. 



268 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

The experiences which have really terrified me 
are such as being lost in a waterless and uninhabited 
country, having been pursued by a hundred baboons, 
or surrounded by a pack of yelping wild dogs ; being 
benighted in swamps amidst clouds of myriads of 
mosquitos, or finding myself suddenly sitting astride 
my alpenstock on a frozen snow-wreath overhanging 
an abyss. 

My son, who at this time was serving in the Sudan, 
remarked to me at Khartum : “We have two kinds 
of country, both hot and thirsty, one where you 
have no water for your thirst and the other with too 
much water but where it is so hot that you have 
not time to drink enough.” He went on to tell me 
a yarn about a man who, when he was at Suakim, 
went. off into the desert on his riding camel loaded 
up with thermos-flasks of tea, but who died of thrist, 
as the tea never cooled enough for him to drink it ! 

I am one of the least thirsty persons living, but 
in the region of the Bahr el Ghazal I perspired so 
freely that I took my canvas water-bottle to bed with 
me. 

One oppressive night, with nothing but faint 
starlight penetrating the river mist, we were moored 
to the reeds on the north bank of the river. When 
the red hot sun had dropped below the feathery tops 
of the high papyrus and had sunk into the endless 
swamps, there were few signs of life about us beyond 
the millions of mosquitoes, and a few crocodile 
snouts floating like pieces of wood among the sudd. 
We had built a partitioned deck house on our nugger, 
on to the roof of which Buxton had taken his bed, 
mosquito helmet and curtains, unable to bear the 



THE ORKNEYS AND THE SUDAN 269 

Stifling heat below ; the men slept on the roof, too.’ 
Miss Buxton and I were in our improvised cabins 
below. 

I turn to my diary : “Feb. 12, near Khor Nadjwad. 
I had a horrible experience this night. At 3.30 a.m. 
I put out my hand, after untucking my mosquito net, 
to reach my water-bottle, which as I placed my hand 
upon it was, I thought, coated with mosquitoes as 
usual, and I carefully drew it through the curtain. 
I was immediately attacked in the hand and arm by 
what I took to be in the first moment, surpassingly 
vicious mosquitoes, but they swarmed up my arm to 
my neck and body and I dropped the water-bottle 
on the floor. 

“ In a minute the creatures had hold of me with 
pinchers all over, as if a hundred tweezers were pulling 
bits of skin off. I leapt out of bed in the dark, only 
to find myself standing in deep moving masses of 
insects. I took off my pyjamas and wrenched and 
swept the mounting myriads down in vain. I now 
realized that they were ants of some dreadful kind. 
In a few seconds I was a column of great ants holding 
on with nippers lobster-like. 

“ Mad with pain and horror, I yelled for Hassan, 
and shouted to Miss Buxton on no account to move 
or touch her mosquito net. Hassan arrived just as 
I was going to dive through the porthole and throw 
myself to the crocodiles. What checked me was a 
shout from Hassan that there was water in a big 
canvas bath aft. 

“ I rushed there, stood in the water and gave battle. 
Fortunately Hassan was fully dressed with strong 
boots and putties on. While he baled buckets of water 



270 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

over me I scraped away with a bar of soap. The 
floor on which the bath stood being also deep in ants, 
Hassan became in a minute a living anthill. By the 
light of his candle it was a terrifying sight, but he was 
brave, if squealing.” 

“ The ants had now ceased to swarm up me, but 
with many I had to tweak their bodies oflF from their 
heads and claws as they hung on like bulldogs. Hassan 
threw me a pair of trousers and a shirt into the bath 
and then carried me aloft. Once on the roof I took 
refuge under Buxton’s bed, and lay there, wet and red, 
till dawn. On reaching the roof Hassan, dancing 
and screaming, was stripped by our two shikaris, who 
wrestled with his enemies and slapped him all over. 

“ When daylight came it revealed a strange state of 
affairs. The whole boat, except the roof, was one 
.seething mass of moving and heaving ants, and we 
' saw them pouring on board along reeds which were 
■in contact with our boat. The broad leaves of the 
, reeds were black with them, and our painter too. 
When we looked to the river bank there was a great 
trough worn through the mud, as far as the eye could 
reach, along which the endless black enemies were still 
marching. 

“ We cut contact and floated into mid-stream, 
and then we gave battle with brooms, shovels, boiling 
water and fire. Landing parties brought dry grass 
which we spread with kerosene over the ants and then 
fired — this work had to be done by relays, for a few 
minutes’ labour sufiiced to send the men dancing and 
yelling back to the roof. When the sun was well up we 
seemed nearly to have swept the ship clean. ...” 

This day we had marvellous luck, for the Govern- 



THE ORKNEYS AND THE SUDAN 271. 

ment steamer Hannek passed us, and not only lent 
us a hand with steam hose, but kindly undertook to 
tow us all the way back to Fashoda. 

“ February 13th. — ^As soon as it was dark last night 
the ants, which must have descended into the bilge and 
into the timbers of our boat, emerged in dense ropes 
and swarms and retook possession of the whole ship. 
We all had a sleepless night on the roof. On reaching 
Taufikya, the Hannek again gave us help with tar, 
creosote and boiling water until we could come down 
from the roof and go ashore. I went ashore at 6.30 
a.m. in my bare feet, being now absolutely without 
footwear of any kind, this having all been rotted off 
in the swamps. 

“ Major Lampriere and Lieutenant Coke gave me 
breakfast, and after discussion as to how the King’s 
Regulations were to be observed, they issued to me, 
for payment, a pair of heavy iron-shod ammunition 
boots. Outside their bungalow were the skulls of 
one of Sir Samuel Baker’s elephants and of a zebra. 
It is interesting to think they have outlasted even the 
long years of the Dervish devastations, . . .” 

I have heard of an army being driven out of camp 
by these ants in the Sudan ; also some natives told 
me that they had known an elephant killed by them, 
but on extracting details of this I found that the 
elephant went mad from the ants getting up his 
trunk, into his eyes and ears, and dashed himself to 
death among trees. My family and I have been 
driven out of our house in Kenya, in the middle of a 
black night, by a less formidable variety of ants in 
their thousands, but not in endless armies — preferring 
the company of the lions which roamed round our place. 



Chapter XXXIX 


ITALY, SCOTLAND AND KENIA, 1907-09 

O N my return to Capri, we came in for the greatest 
and most devastating eruption of Vesuvius that 
has taken place during recent generations. The 
whole island and sea was buried in purple ash, we 
lived in darkness, cut off for days from communication 
with the mainland, and for aught we knew, it was the 
end of the world. 

In Naples hundreds of people perished. The 
streets there were three feet deep in ashes, and many 
villages were wiped out. The whole top of Vesuvius 
was blown off, and when we got a view later the 
“ cone ” of smoke and flame was a wonderful spectacle. 

This summer we got home once again. I now, 
partly with the idea of having a refuge in Africa from 
the menace of Socialism, and partly to find occupation 
for my energies, took up my first five thousand acres 
of land in the Machakos district of British East 
Africa — then to be bought at \d. an acre outside of 
fourteen miles from the Uganda Railway — but I 
remained at home and got some hunting on two young 
Irish mares, which I made into good hunters before 
the end of the season. 

On November 30th I got badly kicked by a horse 
on the shin right into the bone, which was laid bare, 
though I had double pig-skin leather leggings on. 



ITALY AND KENIA 


273 

This was a painful accident, and I got into trouble 
with the doctor, when I sent for him a day or two after, 
for being up and not having the leg sewn up when it 
happened ; but I managed to get out hunting again 
by the end of December, being a rapid healer. 

“ January 5th, 1907. Bone in the ground . . . the 
Squire took hounds down to the Redcar country 
where there was no frost. Found in Lackenby Whin 
and raced a fox straight over the low country to the 
top of Yearby Bank in eighteen minutes and lost. 
This was as fast as I ever saw hounds run over that 
country. Several others and the Master well up, 
but we got there through hard galloping and lucky 
gateways more than by jumping, yet my young mare 
jumped one or two big places and levelled a stiff bit 
of timber 1 ” 

On January 1 5 th I got a good day with my daughter 
with the Hurworth at Low Middleton ; twenty miles 
to covert and twenty miles home from Bishopton ; 
“ saw plenty of dirty coats in the run and one lady got 
a nasty fall and a broken collar bone. Forbes (M.F.H. 
and huntsman) seems to have grown quieter during my 
absence.” 

My summary of the Cleveland’s season does not 
sound as if it had been a very good one, though I 
have recorded two or three nice days : 

63 days ; no blank ones. 

15 days stopped by frost. 

1 1 brace of foxes killed. 

brace of foxes run to ground. 

In June, the first dinner of the Shikar Club took 
place, and I give the whole list of seventy members 
who dined together on June 8th. It is an interesting 

K* 



■ 274 ^ CENTURY OF SPORT 

but to me now rather a sad business going through 
it ; yet the Earl of Lxjnsdale, who was in the chair, 
is still this "year in the same position, and going 
strong. 

The autumn was spent much in the same way as 
others I have recorded, and in December we left for 
my “ farm ” in British East Africa. Our experiences 
there between 1908 and 19 1 1 were interesting enough, 
and included not a few exciting adventures, but 
Kenya is now so well known, and even the early days 
of this colony and of Uganda have been so fully 
written about, that I shall skip it all and deal with the 
intervals at home between my repeated visits to my 
property there. Some day, if I live, I may have 
something interesting to relate about Colonel Theodore 
Roosevelt, F. Selous and other noteworthy people 
who were my guests or with whom I associated in 
those years. 

Like many other pioneer settlers, I went “ to 
the wall ” and others entered into the fruits of my 
labour. My main object was ostrich farming, and 
lions smashed up all my best birds after four years 
of labour, killing over forty one night. One ot three 
lions which perpetrated this outrage was the one 
which afterwards killed my friend, George Grey, 
but into this lion’s brain I put a bullet on that terrible 
day. In my Book of the Lion some incidents of our 
life at Theki and Katanga are related. 

In the autumn of 1908 I was shooting with my 
cousin, Sir Arthur F. Pease, at Thrumster, on the 
East coast of Sutherlandshire, and here again the 
Blue Rock pigeon shooting on the cliffs was a feature 
in the sport. It differed from our Island of Hoy 



ITALY AND KENIA 275 

experience, for now we had to tackle the job from 
boats, and as the sea was usually rough to bumpy, 
it was no easy thing to make a good bag. 

I say of one day ; “ got about eighteen pigeons,' 
saw three seals and one peregrine falcon, and ravens 
were about. The fishermen murder the seals and 
lately killed nineteen in one cave . . . even the small 
boys here now wear trousers instead of kilts — soon 
the whole world will be wearing trousers and caps.” 

Later I was with Sir Edmund Loder, stalking from 
Forest Lodge (Athol), a wild fine forest about which 
Scrope writes in his Art of Deerstalking. I did not 
see any good heads and only got two moderately 
good ones, and out of twenty heads got when I left 
the Loders, there was not one good one. 

On October 20th, 1908, I have a diary entry which 
interests me now. I was President of the Cleveland 
Chamber- of Agriculture and spoke on the rates for 
the upkeep of our roads, the whole burden of which 
was then laid on land, though the enormous increase 
in rates was due to motor traffic chiefly from the towns. 
I said “ in this district when I first had to do with 
the maintenance of roads (now main roads, but then 
managed by the abolished Highway Boards) the 
cost per mile was ,^28 for maintenance and it is now 
,^89 to ;^94 ! ” Yes, and to-day (1931) it is about 
a mile, and we complain that we are “ hard up ” ! 

This was a good season’s hunting, and it is difficult 
to select any particular day of interest save to those 
who know Cleveland. I call a run on February 6th, 
1 909, from Forty Acres “ the best of the season,” 
being one hour in duration, to Stokesley, then west, 
and thence to Ayton, to ground near Newton. I say 



2"]6 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

that near Tanton I saw few except Clive Dixon near 
hounds, aiid he passed me as I came down at the fence 
after jumping a beastly place at the Tanton Stell, but 
I got level again at the north side of Stokesley. I 
■struck a terrible bit of country, in the town enclosures, 
great old fences, rails, wire, doubles, every conceivable 
kind of beastly fence, every fifty yards. When I got 
through it, by Snorter doing wonders, Clive was two 
fields ahead, a hatless man, Claud Pease, W. Brunton 
and Christopher (my son, who had had a ducking in 
the Tanton Stell) were well up. We ran on fast to 
Ayton, from near Major Whin, where I got another 
toss over a fence and stell with rotten banks ; but 
Snorter, in spite of having been heels over head, 
fenced on splendidly to Langbaurgh and to the end, 
when I counted the very dirty jackets, which included 
my own. Miss Inga Dixon’s, Christopher’s and 
others. 

I found only two who really saw this run without 
at least one fall, viz. Clive Dixon and Claud Pease. 
I express indignation that our gallant fox was dug out 
and thrown to the hounds by the huntsman (the Squire 
was not hunting them this day). 

I give about this time an account as told by an 
old-time hunting man who lived near Roxby, known 
to us by the name of “ Bush Billy,” of a run in his 
father’s day. If time has not improved the story 
it is worth recording. His father’s name was James 
Harrison, though he was always referred to as “ Jams.” 

“ Bush Billy ” vouched for these facts : In the 
year 17 . . .(?) a fox had been captured by the 
“ Roxby chaps ” to turn down for a joint day between 
the Roxby Hounds ^nd the Lealholiji Farmers’ 



ITALY AND KENIA 


277 

Hounds. A snow storm delayed the appointment and 
the fox was kept in captivity nearly three months 
before he was “ set down ” near Roxby. He took to 
the moors by Ugthorpe, then by Egton, and was 
killed at Scarborough Castle, not much less than a 
thirty-mile point. This is extraordinary, and I can 
hardly believe it was the same fox, but the really 
amazing thing is that Jams Harrison got to the finish 
on foot at the end of the day. 

At the beginning of March we returned to British 
East Africa. I arranged my arrival at Kitanga so as 
to have time to prepare for ex-President Colonel 
Theodore Roosevelt’s visit. I had never met him, 
but I had had much correspondence with him. His 
sojourn with us came about in this way. F. Selous, 
whom I knew well, had written to me to say that as 
he was in correspondence with Roosevelt about his 
great African expedition, and that as above all things 
Roosevelt wanted to kill a lion, he had referred him 
to me and hoped I could help him in the matter ; he 
himself would arrive with Roosevelt. 

As soon as I heard from the latter I wrote saying 
I could promise him as many lions as he liked to 
shoot if he would come to my place. He said he 
knew enough about Africa to know that no one 
could be sure of getting a lion, and I again wrote to 
him guaranteeing him success. When he arrived 
with his boy Kermit and others, he told me that 
he could spend three weeks with us, and would 
like to get a good variety of game, but would want 
about seven days for writing. I asked, “ How many 
days can you give to lions ? ” And he said about 
three. 



278 HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 

Now, a few days before he came, I had been out 
riding on the Kapiti plains below my house with my 
daughter and W. S. Medlicott, who was staying 
with me, when we put up a lioness and the finest 
black-maned lion I had ever seen in that district, 
and although it was the chance in a lifetime for 
Medlicott, who had not yet shot one, I said we must 
keep that one for Roosevelt, and we left that bit of 
country quiet until his arrival. 

The first day set aside for lions after Roosevelt had 
settled in, I had native scouts all over the hills watching 
for the big lion, and we rode over a great deal of 
country, but never found him, and it was a blank day 
— Roosevelt at that moment did not think much of 
my guarantee. The next day we rode out just a family 
party, and he shot four lions, two being big ones. 
The third day we drove a known lion haunt out to him 
with natives, and he got plenty of thrills with plenty 
of lions, and killed three — and my character was 
completely retrieved. 

During the three weeks that Colonel and Kermit 
Roosevelt were with us, we shot on thirteen days, 
and as a record of what you could see and get wi thin 
twenty miles of my house at Kitanga in 1909, I give 
the following list from my diary of what these two 
saw and killed in those thirteen days : 

1. 17 Lions seen — 7 killed. 

2. 2 Rhinoceros seen — i killed (19 in. horn). 

3. Many Girafe seen — 3 bulls killed, 2 very fine. 

4- Many Eland seen — i killed, several missed. 

5. Few Roan seen — i missed. 

6. Few Oryx (colotis) seen — i missed. 



ITALY AND KENIA 279 

7. Wildebeeste (very munerous) — 2 killed, several 

missed. 

8. Zebra (very numerous) — 5 or more killed. 

9. Hartebeeste (very numerous) about 6 killed, not £t 

few missed. 

10. Grant's Gazelle (very numerous) — about 6 killed 

and some missed. 

11. Thompson's Gazelle (very numerous) — 5 or 6 

killed and some missed. 

12. Chanler's Reedbuck — 5 killed. 

13. Bohor Reedbuck — seen only, not shot at. 

14. Klipspringer — 2 killed. 

15. Bushbuck — several seen, none shot at. 

16. Waterbuck — 2 good ones missed. 

17. Steinbuck — a number killed. 

18. Duikers — a number killed. 

19. Dik-Dik — I killed. 

20. Impala — a number missed, i only killed. 

21. Cheetah — i killed, 3 cubs caught. 

22. Hyana — a few shot at, i killed. 

23. Aardwolf — i seen, not shot at. 

24. Grey Jackal — a number seen, none got. 

25. Black-backed Jackal — some seen, none got. 

26. Wart Hog — many seen, several missed, i killed. 

27. Wild Dogs (Lycaon) — a number seen, several 

difficult shots missed. 

28. Wild Ostriches — ytxy numerous, none shot at. 

I wrote at the time : “I believe this bag (in the 
time at one place) to be a record. Roosevelt was 
delighted with it beyond words and covered me with 
compliments — said the object of his whole trip was 
assured by these results at the outset. . . . Roosevelt 
made the hard work it has been for us all a great 



28 o 


HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT 


pleasure. His perseverance and common sense made 
up for any deficiencies in his sight and shooting. He 
will no doubt get more deadly with the continuous 
practice they will have, and I prophesy that Kermit 
will be a good shot in a month or two. Roosevelt 
never loses his head for a moment. Kermit is game 
and determined.” 

Roosevelt was a delightful guest, most appreciative, 
understanding, sympathetic, easily pleased, simple in 
his wants and habits ; always kind, genial, courteous 
and tactful. “ He understands intuitively the people 
he is with, and has a versatile mind deeply interested 
in everything, not only in Nature, but in every sort 
and condition of mankind. 

“ He expresses himself extraordinarily well, and 
with a most retentive memory has stored his head 
with the results of a vast experience of events and of 
the many interesting people he has met, as well as 
from wide reading and study in many directions.” 

I had never been with a man before who evidently 
considered every day what the world would think, 
say or write about his success or failure. I said so 
one day when he had knocked down a nasty lion, and 
had exclaimed : “ That’s one for Wall Street ! ” 
And he replied that he enjoyed being “ important,” 
and added what contains a general truth : “ Of 
course, I like to be a big man, everyone likes to be 
important and to have power and influence.” His 
natural candour was one of his charms. 

Save for a brief period in my life I have never 
had “ power,” and then I enjoyed it ; yet, on the 
whole, I feel the freedom of private life a blessed 
thing, and think hene qui latuit, bene vixit. 







ITALY AND KENIA 


281 


And now I have come into the period of a living 
generation and shall end these reminiscences — though 
I have recorded much in the eventful years which 
have passed since 1909. I hope what I have written 
may do a little to dispel the strange idea which I 
find prevalent — that we who spent our best days 
in the last century were dull dogs in a dull age. 

I am at least thankful to have lived when and 
where my destiny has decided, and for the com- 
panionships I have had on my journey from youth to 
age, not forgetting those of horse and hound. 


THE END 




INDEX 


Aberdeenshire, 96, 123, 136, 162; 
first regular driving over modern 
butts, in, 5 ; atrocious weather, 66, 
Abu Klea, the victory, 86 
Abyssinia, 234, 244, 252, 256; very 
trying to the heart, 224 
Achmet Tchaus, author’s Yuruk hun- 
ter, 167 
Acklam, 57 
Addis Ababa, 244 
Aden, 220 

Africa, 20 ; a refuge from Socialism, 272 
African wild sheep {O^ts ler^via), “ ar- 
row! or arui,” most fascinating big 
game, 179 seq. j their cunning, 180, 
181 

Agriculture, amusing debate on “ Stock 
and Turnips,” 49 
Ahmar, a little beauty, 218, 232 
Ainsley, Stephen, 41 
Ain Tai^ba, 198 

Aintree, wide natural thorn fences, 153 
Airedales, 51, 53 ' 

Aislaby, near Whitby, 15 
Ak Dagh, 163, 165 
Albright, George, 3, 264 
, M. C., 245 

Algiers, for the winter, 24, 1 74 seq,, 1 80, 
183, 186, 193 seq,, 196, 211, 256 
Ali bel kassim, author’s regular shikari, 
188, 189, 1905 saves author’s life, 
imprisonment and death, 19 1 
Alligator, the, our ” bob,” 223 
Allison, Harry, the fox in a bush, 106 
Althorp, author stays at, 1 50 
Arabs, European varieties, 14 1, 142 
Ashkehehr, 165 
Ashton Clinton, 173 
Asia Minor, 1 62 seq. 


Asquith, Herbert, re-drafts author’s 
Bill, 143 

Atherton, Major, killed at Abu Klea, the 
hardest rider to hounds I ever saw, 86, 

87 

Atlas Range, 175, 176, 179 
Amcotts, Captain, 33 
Anbar, a beautiful Abeyan Sherrake 
horse, 218 

Andrew, Tom, famous Master of 
Hounds, hunts till his death, i, 2, 39 
Angel, the, 2X 

Antrobus, Sir Cosmo of Antrobus, 14 
” Arundel ” of the Field, 121 
Angrove, at, ” heaviest and fattest fox ” 
ever seen, 1 1 5 
Aures, the, 193, 198 
Austria, strange sporting customs, 203 
seq, 

Aylesbury, Vale of, 112 
Aylmer, Eddy, 21 1 

— , Percy, of Walworth Castle, Dar- 
lington, 14 
Aysdale Gate, 88 
Ayton, 93, 131, 275, 276 


Bachelor, a grand old hound, 90 
Backhouse, Charles, of Wolsingham,247 
Badger hunting in Herefordshire and 
Gloucestershire, 50 seq, I 

Badminton, 21, 80 

Badminton Magazine, an article on the 
Cambridge Drag, 16 
Bad Nauheim, for treatment, 233, 234, 
240 

” Baggie,” hunting a, 60, 61, 84, 85 
Bahr el Ghazal, 164, :2,66, 268 
Bahr el Zeraf, 266, ‘ 



INDEX 


2$4 


t ■>> , 

Btaillie-Grolunan, a great authority, 206 
.207, 208 

Baird, his Busybody, 75 
Baker, Frank Baker, 247 
’ — , Sir Samuel, one of his elephants, 271 
Balmoral,' 27, 67 
Balldchbuie Forest, 27 
Bapu Saheb, the Rajah’s brother, tale of 
a women who smothered a bear, 253, 
^ ^54 

Barbara, a grand old hound, 90 
Barberton, 257, 262 j and a great 
ground hornbill, 251 5 races, 259, 260 
Barbizon, 215 

Barbour, Robert, author’s brother-m- 
law, grouse-driving, 136 
Barclay, Ed. E., author’s cousin, Master 

- of the Puckeridge, 88, 89 ; some fun 
with the beagles, 91 ; a curious pet, 
112 

— , H. A., the author’s cousin, 98 
— , Mrs., 98 

— , Fred, the author’s cousin, some good 
lion stories, 219 

Barebones, (by Victor, “ good stuff 
that ”), a bad fall, 77, 78 j black and 
fidgety, 83, 84 

Baring, Colonel, had only one eye, 5 
Barker, George, 169 
Barnard, 18 
Barningham, 227 
Barr (the Jager), 207 
Bathurst, Lord and Lady, 75 
Batna, 198 j the market, 174, 193 
Battersby Banks, 90 
Battersea, Lord. See Cyril Flower 
Bawtry, 247 
Baysdale Abbey, 60 
, 72, 151 

Beaufort, Duke of, 21,41, 58, 60, 75, 79 
— , Duchess, 75 

— Hunt, 80 5 a City dinner, 75 
Bedale, the, 48, 70, 73, 89 
Beecher, Captain, ii 

Beni Mzab, 230 

Bentinck, Lord Henry, 148, 149, 150 
Bentley, 18 
Berbera, 220 

' Beresford,,|*Otd Marcus, 112 


Berkeley, Stanley, illustrates Paulton’s 
article on Cambridge Drag, 16 
Berlin, the great International Horse 
Show and Continental breeds, 141, 

142 

Bernard, Dr. Oscar, 208 
Berry, the hangman, 100 
Bertram, by Bramham Marquis, a grand 
old hound, 90 
Best, Mr., 92 
Bethel Slack, 72, 88 
— Moor, 146 
Bett, John of Rohallion, 10 1 
Beverley Wood, 129 
Big game, which many species die out, 
260, 261 

“ Bill,” the first whip, 237 

Bilsdale Hounds, 39, 60, 69, 121, 131, 

143 5 claim descent from seventeenth 
century pack, 122 5 suppressed by 
Feversham, 132 5 in trouble again. 

Binning, Lord, of “The Blues,” 135 
sometimes carried the horn, 12 j a 
thorn in his eyeball, 14 
Bishop Auckland, 59 
Biskra, 177, r8o, 183, 184, 187, 192, 
197, 198, 200 ; the author’s book 
on, 174 

Bir Beresof, 198 

Birdlip, 52 

Birk Brow, 38 

Bizerta, 175 

Blackbanks, 214 

Blackbeck, 72 

Black Yat, 65 

Bletchingley, 99 

Blew, Mr. of the Field, 122 

Blida, 178 

Bluecap, 115 

Blunt, Wilfred, 218 ; his Arabian Ah- 
mar, 232 

Boer, unsuccessful attempt to “ fool ” 
the author, 250, 251 j gives animal 
wrong names, 250, 251 
Bolckow, Harry, second in Lightweights 
151 

Bombay, 249 



INDEX 


Bonny bell, a bitch from Lord Ports- 
mouth, ii6 
Bonskeid, 136 

Book of the Lion^ by the author, 274 
Boosbeck Valley, 85 
Bordeaux, 156 

Bostock, Dr., author’s district surgeon, 
258 

** Bouba,” notorious ex-bandit, plays 
guide to the party, his history, 164 
seq. 

Boulby Cliff, 84 
Bousdale (Hutton), 60, 236 
Boyle, Cecil, of Broghill, 120 
Braemar, 29 

Brag, pointer, 66 j his shoulders too 
short, 173 

Brandwater Basin, 260 
Briggs, 91 ; headkeeper to Sir Joseph 
Pease, a character, 54, 55 j blowing 
his whistle crazy, 66 
Brindisi, 167 
Brinsop, 52 
Bristol, 58 

British East Africa, 210 
Brock, 51 

Brocklesby Kennels, 19 
Broghill, 120 
Brooke, Sir Victor, 155 
Brousa, 164 
Brunton, Bob, 58 
— , W., 276 

Bubbles, in the shafts, “ a little wonder,” 
129, 130 

Bugler, five-year-old, by Hurworth 
Cromwell, 142 
Buller, Redvers, 81 

— , Lady Audrey, “ a nice little lady,” 8 1 
Bullfinch, a very strong, 140 
Burke, Mr., 126 

Burrell, shooting tenant of Kildale, 136 
Burstow, the, 98, 99, 100 j “a merry 
little pack,” 102 
Buchardo, 157 

Buckingham, Duke of, first Master of 
the Bilsdale, 40 

Bucorag cafer (the Brom-vogel or Int- 
singizi), 252 
Budapest, 265 


Bureau Arabe, the, 1 80 
Bufka, 220 « 

Burnaljy, Colonel, killed at Abu KUea, 86. 
Burrell, Sir Merrick, 

Busby, 123 ' " - . ; " 

” Bush Billy,” 37' 5 (Harrison), tafe of 
a fox in captivity three months, 27^, , 

277 ' 

Busybody at the Oaks, 75 
Butcher, Mr., 230 

Buxton, Edward North, cousin of au- 
thor, 55, 157,161, 166,209,211, 266, 
268, 270 ; his “Short Stalks,” 155, 
162 ; with the author in Asia Minor, 
162 seq. ; expected help from consuls, 
etc., 163 ; his dog and guns, 167, 168 
— , Gerald, author’s brother-in-law, 2ro, 
230, 2385 climbs on hands and knees, 

IS 7 . 158 

— , father of above, “ his short route,” 
158 

— , Ivor, 245 

— , Theresa, daughter of Edward North 
Buxton, 266, 269 ; with author in 
the Sudan, 163 

Cab A JEAN, by Shiboleth, a beautiful two- 
year-old, 91 

Cafe Papaillard, a perfect lunch, 217 
Cairo, 266 
Calais, 167 

Calmady-Hamlyn, Mrs., author’s eldest 
sister, her death, 1 1 9 
— , Vincent, died on horseback, 227 
— , Sylvia, judge and breeder of ponies, 
227, 228 

Cambridge, 10, 12, 14, 19, 61, 63, 74, 
75, 153, 240 J a three-mile Blue, 2 ; 
an article on the Cambridge Drag, 1 6 ; 
at Cambridge thought nothing of six- 
teen miles, 23 
Canigou, Mount, 21 1 
Cannon, jockey, 153 
Cape Colony, 178 
Cape Town, 256 
Capra, 157 

Capri, 264, 265, 272 J detestible pur- 
suit of robins, 265, 266 
— , via Ancona, 265 



INDEX 


286 

’ Caress, a three-year-old, by Syrian, won 
many prizes^,-! 19 

Carew, Dowager Lady {nee Miss ClijSTe), 
died at 103^ 246 

— /R, S.>'husband of above, 246 
' Ca^o Fleet, 38,- 86 
.\(^Vmarthen, Lord, 147, 149 
Carmichael, Major, of the 5th Lancers, 
i« j killed at Abu Klea, 86 
Carpathians, the, 205 
Carter, George, his weird intuition, 17 
Cashipere, 157 
Cass Rock, 72, 90 
Castle Lodge, 86 

Castlereagh, Lord, first-rate with the 
hounds, 59 
Castleton, 85, 91 
Cat Trod, 171 

Cattle, Timothy, of Sessay, 10 
Chaloner, Admiral Thomas, an old sea- 
dog, 32 j his death, 75, 76 5 riding 
Curzon, 212 
— , Hume, 27 

Champion, making a good day out of 
a bad, 17 ; a splendid huntsman, 59, 
60 

Chance, pointer, 66 
Chapman, Henry, 41 
Charfield, 79 

Charlie,” a portly coachman, 212 
— the Whip, 39 
Charmer, for my money, 133 
Chelia, Mount, 193 
Chester Stewards’ Cup, 119 
Cheyennes, capture Sir Wm. Stuart, loi 
Chicha, 190 
Chippenham, 21 
Chop Yat, 13 1 

Cinemetographe, the new wonder, 217 
Claphow, 88 
— , Whin, 106 

Clark, Captain Tower, on Chartreuse, 
146 

- Clarke, Jock, 68 ; a marvellous escape, 

■ 171 

Claxton, 103 

Cleveland, 20, 32, 46, 64, 69, 71, 72, 
74, 8i, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 93, 
102, J0.3, 107, no, 1 1 3, 1 1 7, 122, 


127, 136, 142, 151, 211, 213, 

222, 226, 228, 230, 233, 238, 239 
275 ; The Clenjeland Hounds as a 
Trencher-fed Tack^ by the author, 37 ; 
author’s last day with, 62 ; Wharton 
becomes Master, 96, 97 ; a season 
with, 130 seq. ; first quail shooting, 
218 5 summary of season, 273 
— Bay, “ Stud Book ” and “ Horse 
Society,” 103, 104 
— , Duke of, I 

Clumber spaniels, for covert shooting, 8 
Coaching and Hackney stallions and 
mares, 142 
Coatham, 106 

Coburg, Prince Philip of, 204 
Cockermouth, iioj the steeplechase, 
126 

Cockerton, a country village, i 
Cockle Scar, 172 
Codhill, 90 

Codrington, Sir Wm., 58 
Coke, Lieutenant, 271 
Colling, Bob, 68 
Collins, Bob, 21 1 
Commondale, 90 

Comus, by Pero Gomez, a beautiful 
black stallion, unsound in wind, 87 
Consort, the Prince, 204 
Cook, broke his arm, 223 
Cookson, Master of the Hurworths, bred 
first and second of same year’s Derby, 
his sermons, 45, 46 

Cork, Lord, Master of the Buckhounds, 

75 > ^7 

Corndavon, 56 ; “ bags ” on the Moor, 
6} and Queen Victoria, 55 
Cornwall, 50, 94, 239 ; three perfect 
man- traps, 239 

Cottenham, a real ** natural ” course for 
steeplechase, 153 
Cottesmore, 68 
Coulby, III 

Coulson, 133 ; regular follower of the 
Bilsdale, to collect the hounds, 13 1 i 
and Bobby Dawson, 144 
Coum Bank, 39, 85 

Coutts, Burdett, his wonderful stud, 142 
Crabbet Park, a sale of Arabs, 218 



INDEX 


Cradock, C., of Hartford, in charge of 
the Meet, i 

— , “ Kit,” his sailor son, a nasty fall, 
214 

— , Sheldon, 146, 21 1 
Craggies, the, 2200-ft. high, 63 
Crathie, 123 

Crathorne Bridge, iii, 134 
Craven, the, bought from Mr. Best, 
92 

Craven Sailor, the, 93 
Credenhill Park, 51 
Crocodile River, 26 
Croft, a fashionable hunting centre, 89 
Cromer, Lord, one man who vetoed a 
plan of Edward North Buxton’s, 164, 
266 

Cromwell, by Belvoir Dandy, a grand old 
hound, 90 ; of the Hurworths, 103 
Cropper, Charlie, died from a fall out 
hunting, 73 

Crossley, Sir Savile, his black coat, 148, 
149 

Crowther, shot a bear, 175 
Croydon, 47 
Cullardoch, 123 

Cunard, Gordon, Master of the Drag, 12 
Curzon, a half-bred gelding, 212 

Dale, Sir Jas. B., 68 5 often in the 
front, 59 

— , Miss, holds fox by her apron string, 

39 

— , Thomas, 152 

Damon, 141 5 starts favourite, 148, 
149 

Danakil, 244 
Danby Beacon, 9 1 
— Lodge, 7 

Darlington, i, 14, 47, 128, 129, 130 
Darrel, James, of West Ayton, 35, 65, 
70, 72, 73, 78 ; good judge of hun- 
ters, 210 

Darynton, Lord, 147 
Davenport, Bromley, 147 
Daventry, 139 

Dawson, Bobby, whipper-in with the 
Bilsdale for eighty-six years, 39-41, 
61, iji, 132, 133, 143, 1445 on 


■ 2 -^ 

Arundel " of the Field, end'- other 
matters, 121-3 ; k,j^t hounds, in 
secret, 132 

Dax, 156 ’ ‘ > 

de Crespigny, Sir, Claude, ^ss^sts #t tC 
hanging, 100 ' 

Dee, the, 27 - ' , ^ 

Deeside, 114 ' 

Delamere, his boy pulled lion off hiVn 
with his bare hands, 219 
Delhi, the Durbar, 254 
Derby, Lord, 109 

— the, 75 ^ ' ' 

d’Eresby, Lord Willoughby, 230 
Devas, Edward, a fine galloping shot, 186 
Devon, 119 

Devonshire Club, a dinner to Gladstone, 

Dexters, dwarf cows which give a good 
yield on poor pastures, 120, 12 1 
Didmarston, 58 
Discretion, 140 

Dixon, Clive, our best man, 121, 142 j 
“ a hatless man,” 276 
— , Miss Inga, 276 

— , Wm. Scarth, 58, 77, 102, 103 } 

“ there you are — beef 1 ” 49 j a 
broken collar-bone, 133 
** Djebel Agony,” an awful mountain, 
189, 190 

Djebel Djermona, 196 
Djibouti, 244 
Djudjura mountains, 175 
de risle and Dudley, Lord, 213 
Dobson, Frank, 41 
Doddington, 58, 80 
Dollaw, 65 

Doneraile, Lord, died of hydrophobia 
from bite of fox, 113 
Dongola, 164, 199 

Dorrington, Mrs., “ a wonder across 
country,” 238 
Dougleish, 162 
Dover, 167 

Downe, Viscount, his breed of retrie- 
vers, 7 

Drumochter, 3, 264 
Dunsdale Bridge, 90 
Durdans, the, 209, 2x2 



INDEX 


288 

Durgan, '94 - 
Durham, 16, 20, 213 
Dutch Skater, -ah old stallion, 135 

'Easeby Wood, ’93 
, Edep,. Sir ‘William, on Lord Grey, 146 
ridge, 98 

Edward VII, coronation postponed, 254 
'Edwards, Mr., of Brinsop Court, 51 
-T— , Mrs., 51 
Eggesford, 80, 91 
Egton, 277 
Egypt, 179 
Elba, 265 

Election, a brown blood horse, by 
Ballot, 21 
El Gblea, 19 1 
E iott, George, M.P., 128 
Eiliot-Lees, 149, 150 j winner of 

House of Commons Steeplechase, 139 
Ellis, “ Bill,” 18 
El Oued-Souf, 187, 198 
Elphick, Capt., shot a python of 27 feet, 
249 

, Elton Fox, badly smashed, 223 
Emir, the, 165 
Engadine, the, 208 
Erg, 200 

Esher Cup, a sensational race for, 119 
Essex, the, 238 
Eston Banks, 171 

Everett, shoots with pin-fire guns, 137 
Eviction, a young mare, her pedigree, 
no, 1 16 

Ewing, Charlie Orr, 240 
— , Lady Augusta, wife of the above, 240 
— , Jimmy (“ The Weasel ”), brother of 
the above, leading at the last fence, 14J 
a hard rider, 240, 241 
Eyes shot, when shooting, 66, 67 

FAIRrAX-BLAKEBOROUGH, MaJOR, OD 
“ Bobby ” Dawson, 122 
Falkland, Lord, joins the Hurworth, 127 
Falmouth, 94 
Fana, Prince, 195, 196 
Faraway, by Fairyland, 57, 58 ; you 
can’t shoe him, nor clip him, nor 
physic him, 34-6 


Farndale, the, 85, 123 
Farquaharson, Col. Jim, of Invercauld, 5 
Farrar’s Whin, 128 
Fas! oda, 271 

Fawcett, Postmaster-General, struck in 
centre of each eye, 67 
Felsobanya, 265 

Fellowes, Robert, 136 ; “ shooting at 
ninty,” 2, 3 

Ferris, Colonel, of the Residency, 252 
Feversham, Earl of, Master of the Be- 
dale, 48 

— , suppressed the Bilsdale, 132 
Ficksburg, 260 

fields The^ no, 140 ; record of a great 
run, 35, 565 the history of a pack, 
935 correspondents Arundel” and 
Mr. Blew, 121, 122 5 on fine per- 
formance of author’s young son, 
Christopher, 217, 218 
Fighting Cocks, 128 
Findlay, of the Embassy at Constanti- 
nople, 163 
Finedon Poplars, ii 
Fitzwilliam, the, 12, 17 
— Hugh, 18 
Fiume, 265 

Flatter, Colonel, his expedition, 197 
Flecknoe, 149 

Flower, Cyril (Lord Battersea), 15 1 ; 

his fine performers, 112 
— , Professor, his “butterflies and bugsl” 
H3 

Fogo, the Invercauld factor, 156 
Fontainebleau, what a change for the 
worse, 215 

Fop, pointer, 66 * 

Forbes, Mr., Master of the Hurworth, 
swears all day, 107, 108 ; “ Shall I 
draw again ? ” 128 j sees fox which 
is not there, 238 ; rather quiet, 273 
Forcester, 59 

Forest Lodge (Athol), 275 
Forster, huntsman to the Duke of 
Buckingham, 41 
Forty Acres, 275 
Forty Pence, 85 
Foss Lodge, 41, 80 



INDEX- 


Foureau, Fernand, a great African ex- 
plorer, 197-9 

Fox, of Conduit Street, shoemaker, 
makes the best rubber soles, 180 
— , Edwin, cousin of the author, 115 5 
and an Irish horse, 126, 127 
— , George Croker, author’s cousin, lost 
an eye on the field, 66, 67 
— , Gurney, 69 

— , Howard, the author’s uncle, fond of 
fishing from Manacles Rock, 95 
Fox’s Bridge, 21 
Foxdale, 88 
Foxhall, 135 

Foxhall, old stallion, with bad fore- 
legs and ankles, 135 
Fowler, Sir Robert, author’s father-in- 
law, 79 ; “a tough customer,” 41 42 
— , Tom (Sir Thomas), the author’s 
brother-in-law 5 killed at end of 
Boer War, 60, 256 

Fraser, of Edinburgh, adapts rifle for 
author, 193, 194 5 219 
Freeborough Hall, 9 1 
Freedom, by “our Pasquin,” 142 
Freeman tie, Hon. T. (Lord Cottesloe), 
perhaps the best English marksman, 
206, 207, 208 
French Sahara, 230 
Fryup Head, 85 

Gabes, Gulf of, 179 
Gainford, Lord (“ Jack ”), author’s 
brother, 5, 7, 46, 56, 62, 63, 68, 73, 
90, 91, 93, 94, 1 14, X17, 128, 129, 
147, 158, 184, 197, 211, 213, 226 j 
his pack of foot-beagles, 9 ; wins a 
six-mile drag, 215 a thorough *‘blood- 
ing,” 44, 45 ; a record in his dog-cart, 
1 30 5 good day with his beagles, 1 30 j 
a wonderful performance, 15 1, 152 ; 
to the Pyranees, 155 seq , } a contest 
in thirteen events, 214 ; an easy win- 
ner in House of Commons Steeple- 
chase, 229 
Gairn Shiel, 55 
Galla, countries, 244 
Gallant, an eight-season hound, 90 
Galloway, the English racing, 232 


289 

Galtee More, the favourite, wins the 
Derby, 226 

Galvayne, Australian professor, his 
system ’’ of horse-training, 95, 96 . 
Gameboy, his great capacities, ij6 
“ Gamester,’^ a fine hound, S' 6 ", 
Garbutt, Chapman, 41 
— , John, 41 
— , R., 41 
Garford, W. H., 21 
Garland, Dr., killed by a pig, 10 
Garrogie, 55, 209, 210 
Gaudy, a bitch, wins first prize, 103 
Gavarnie, 155, 185 

Gayhurst, a little brown mare, 21 ; 

dislocates her spine, 22 
Gaylass, by Hurworth Gameboy, 142 
Gazelles of the desert, live entirely with- 
out water, 1 82 

General, by Richmond, wins first priie, 
103 

Genoa, 127 
George III, 59, 246 
Ghadmes, 183 
Ginger Tail, 14 
Gladstone, a dinner to, 87 
Glen Dole, 209, 210 
Glossop, Captain, 227 
Gloucestershire, 50, 117 
Goatscar, 88 
Godstone, 98 
Goodman, 149 
Gorge de la Chiffa, 178 
Gough, Major, of “ the Heavies,” killed 
at Abu Klea, 86 

Grace, Dr. (brother of W. G.), 22 
Graham, Sir Reginald, 107 
Grand National, the, 21, 126, 141, 153 
Grant, Miss Forsyth, had leg pulverized, 
223 

Green, Charlie, M.F.H., 238 
Green-Price, Chase, 62, 63, 65 
— , Frank, 62, 63 5 cheery and brave, 
63, 64 

— , Sir Richard, 63 

— , “Dauntsey Dick,” son of above, 63, 

65 

— , Alfred, another brother, 63 
Greene, Raymond, 229 



INDEX 


290 

Grey, '"Sir Edwa’rd, T13, 143 
— ,;‘George, killed by a lion, 274 
Grey Palmer, 119 
Greystones, 146 
Grove, the, 103 
Gylsachan, “ rotten ammunition,” 218 
G^brough, 32, 95, 146, 246 
— .Banks, 85, 8.8 
' : — Abbey, 90 
— . Park, 90, III 
Guerara, 200 
punnergate, iii 


Haigh, “ B,” 18 
Haddington, Earl of, 13 
Hale, Percy, a sporting parson, 227 
— , William, steward of Skinningrove 
Hall, a centenarian, 246 
Hallam, his Middle Ages^ 42 
Hamada, the, 175 
Hambleton, iii 
Hamilton, Duke of, 91 
— , Lord Ernest, out of the race, 148 
— , Major James Stevenson, his police 
posts, a mighty lion-killer, 261, 262 
Hamsterly, 214 
Hanbury, Cornelius, 246 
— , Elizabeth, widow of the above, died 
at 108, 246 
Han Dagh, 165 
Handale, 237 

Handsome, a Milton bitch, 93 
Hanging Stone, 131, 246 
Hares and Rabbits Act, 1 1 3 
Harrar, Province of, 244, 254 
Harrison, Mr., “ a sheep-dog and six 
pups,” 74 

— , James (Jams), father of “ Bush 
Billy,” 276, 277 
Hartforth, i 
Hartingdon, 87 

Harvester, by Sterling, with St. Gatien, 

75 

Hassan, 269, 270 
.Helford River, 94 

Helmsley, Viscount, son and heir to 
39,000 acres, his early death, 47, 48 
Hereford, 51, 52 


Herefordshire, 50 

Heughall, 77 

Heygate, 18 

High Cliff Nab, 246 

High Leven, 68 

Hill, Geoffrey, his pack, 63 

Hilton, III 

Hoare, Mr., his hounds, 98, 99 
Hob Hill Viaduct, 146 
Hodgson, Captain, where to find the 
Addax antelope, 266 
Holbeck, 90 

Holland, the Bedale huntsman, 70 
Holly Lodge, 142 

Holmwood, British consul, helps Bux- 
ton, 164 
Holt, 79 

Hoole, Master of the Drag, broke his 
neck in a steeplechase, 12 
Heath House, the, 1 1 
Hopkins, William Innes, 246 
Hopper, a day with two packs, 80 
Happyland, 214 

Hornbills, their charming manners and 
intelligence, 251, 252 
Hornby, 129 

Horsfall, F. Wilson, M.F.H., 41, 131 
Hors ted Keynes, 99 
Hotchkiss, lends author a nice half-bred, 
259, 260 

House of Commons Steeplechase, 117 ; 
the second, 139-41 ; the third, 147- 
50 ; in 1898 author’s brother an easy 
winner, 229 
Howden Gill, 130 

Hoy, the most striking of the Orkney 
islands, 263, 264, 274 
Hubert, General, 227 
Hunters, have improved, 32, 33 
Hungary, 265 
Huntcliffe, 90 

Hunter, C., on Woodlawn, 147 
Hunting Reminiscences, by the author, 3 5 
Huntingdon, 23 

Huntsmen and whippers-in, 107 
Hurworth Hounds, 23, 45, 68, 80, 88, 
89,93, i 27 » 129* 136, 228, 

237, 238, 273 ; their founder, Tom 
Wilkinson, 134 



INDEX 


Hussar, “ too full of corn for his work,” 
129 

Hutchinson, Teesdale, “ one of our 
great men,” 73 
Hutton, 46, 213, 246 

— Home Farm, 89 

— Lowcross Moor, 5, 60 

— Middle Gill, 13 1 

Ibrahim, a negro slave, runs twenty-six 
miles on camel’s milk and dates, 188, 
189 

India, the elephant and his rider, ii ; 

makes you slack, 224 
Ingleby Park, 72, 1 51, 213 
Invercauld, 5 
Inverewe, 218 
Ireland, 115, 122 
Italian Grand National, the, 127 

Jackal, tamed, 24 
Jackson, Charles Ward, 146, 212 
Jackson’s Black Plantation, 1 1 1 
Jarvis, 141 
Jericho, 98 

Jerry, a white-haired terrier, his adven- 
ture and marvellous recovery, 46, 47 
Jerry-Go-Nimble, 33; “the fastest 
horse I ever rode,” 31, 32 
Jerseys, 120 

Johnstone, Captain (Lord Derwent), 5, 

. 

— , Miss, 65 

Johnson, customs officer in the Trans- 
vaal, and a tame ( ?) eagle owl, 26 
Jorrocks, 98 
Judea, 98 

Kaffirs, 252, 256 
Kandahar, 243 
Kapiti, 278 
Katanga, 274 
Kellsall, 18 

Kendal Show, the, 210 
Kenya, 26, 240, 261, 271, 274 
Kermit, Roosevelt’s “ boy,” 277-80 
Kerry heifers, very wild at first, 1 20, 1 2 1 
Khanga Sidi Nadji, the Kaid of, 194, 

195-7 I 


291 

Khartum, 266, 268 ■ ’ ' *■', 

Khor Nadjwad, 269 ' * 

Kilcott, 59 
Kildale Hall, 39 

— Moor, 72, 90, 136 

— Road, 146 ' " , 

Kilton, 88 

Kingscote, Sir Nigel, 42 
Kirby, Seth, 41 

Kirkconnel third to Sir Visto, 212 
Kirkleatham, 70, 15 1 
Kitanga, 278 
Kitching, Ben, 41 
— , Joseph, 41 
Knighton, 63 

Kolhapur, the Maharaja of, visited, 252. ; 

entertained, 254, 255 
Komati River, 257 

— Poort, 26, 224, 258 
Kruger National Park, 262 

Lebombo, 258 
Labradors, nice, but slow, 7 
La Casque, 158 
Lackenby Whin, 273 
Lactantius, a beautiful little horse, 173 
Ladas, Lord Rosebery’s, 209 
Lady Brand, 260 
Lake No, 266 
Lambesa, 191 
Lambton, Freddy, 67 
— , Ralph, “ Huic to Jingler,” 59 
Lampriere, Major, 271 
Lane Head Plantation, 115 
Lavigerie, Cardinal, gives a prize for race, 
183 

Lawley, Algy, or Arthur (The Rev. 
Lord Wenlock), on Ginger Tail, 14 ; 
governor in the Transvaal, 74, 75 
Lawson, Sir Wilfred, “ a neat im- 
promptu,” 87, 88 
Lazenby, 71 
Lealholm, 74 

Leatham, A. S. (“ Ted ”), the author’s 
cousin, a great cricketer, 117, 15S 
160 j “blooded,” 114; in the, 
Pyrenees, 155 seq. j brings big game 
from British East Africa, 241--3 
Leawood, 227 



INDEX 


292 

Lee, Jolm (“ Jojm the Webster ’*) and 
Queen Victoria, 55 

Leeds, Duke of (“ Dolly Carmarthen ”), 
“ went to ground ” under a sofa, 16, 

Leete, kennel-man to Cambridge Drag 
and “ Dolly Carmarthen,” 16, 17 
Leighton, 173 
Lehmann, jR., 1 8 
Leonardslee, 209 

Lett, John, finds six blue roan coach- 
horses for Maharaja, 254 
Leven, the, 134 

— Banks, 1 1 1 
Lily Agnes, 119 
Lincolnshire, 19 

Littledale, St. George, noted explorer, 
193 

Little Kildale, 72 

Little worth, huntsman, knows his busi- 
ness, 81 

Liverton, 15, 84, 115, 116 
Lloyd, 14 

— , Theodore, of Croydon, most hospit- 
able of men, 1 1 2, 1 1 3 
— , Alfred, his herd of Shorthorns, 1 13 
Loates, Sam., 212 
” The Lobster,” 106 
Locarno, 219 
Loch Bulig, 44 

— Collator, 27 
Lochnagar, 27 
Lockwood Beck, 85, 88 
Lockwood, Frank, Q.C., M.P. for York, 

105 5 driving the moor, 135, 136 
Loder, Sir Edmund G., 185, 187, 188, 
189, 190, 191, 198, 204, 205, 206, 
207, 208, 227, 275 ; animals in his 
forests, 209 5 his museum, 239 

— Lady, 207, 208 
Loftus, 212 
Loftus Wood, 237 

London, its loathesomeness, 116, 117 
Londonderry, Lord, 136 5 in Ireland, 241 
Long, Walter, 149, 150, 220 ; “ went 
round with the hat,” 79 

— Hull, 88 

Lonsdale, Earl of, 75, 136 ; still going 
strong, 274 


Low Middleton, 273 
— Veld, the, no 
Lowlander, 119 
Lowndes, Selby, 112 
Lowther, Lieut.-Col. Sir Charles, son of 
George Lowther, Master of the 
Pytehley, 105 

— , Captain John George, brother of 
George Lowther, Master of the 
Pytehley, 105 

— , Right Hon. James, guarantor for the 
Clevelands, 97 5 more of a racing than 
hunting man, 105, 116 
— i George, an indefatigible follower, 103 
— , James, poacher who murdered a 
keeper, 70, 71 

Lucifer, hunted five days out of six, 12 
Lumpsy, 88 

Lundie, Scotch keeper, 44, 66, 1 14, 1595 
lost on the way, 156 
Lyde Green, near Bristol, 58 
Lyttleton Alfred (the cricketer) . 

Macbean, George, 128 
Machell, Captain, 16 
Machakos, 272 

McLachlan, knocks down four ladies, 
223 

“ Mac-Mac,” the Swazie Queen, 195 
Madeira, 47 

Magniac, Herbert, Master of the Drag, 
12 

Mahony, Pierce, his nice herd of red and 
black Kerries, 120 

Major, a lemon and white pointer, ” the 
ketty creatur,” 55 

Major Whin, a toss over a fence, 276 
Malalane, 249 

Malster, a Welsh hound, too fast, 64 ; 
by Llanowan Miller, handed to John 
Proud, 65 ; distinguished himself, 
69 

Maltby, 57, 115 

Marne, Edmund of Tours, 217 

Manacles Rock, very dangerous fishing. 

9 + . . 

Mannlicher rifle, merits over the Schoe- 
nauer, 194, 195, 201, 202 
Marigold, a roarer, 152 



INDEX 


293 


Marske Hall, 70, 137 
Marton, 2, 57 
— Beck, 57 

Matheson, first-rate with the hounds, 59 
Mavrogadato,” broke his arm, 223 
Maynard, Squire of Skinningrove Hall, 
246 

Medd, Bell, 4.1 

Medlicot, W. S., 27 ; his “ chance in a 
lifetime,” 278 
** Meggitt’s Lane,” 152 
Melhaa, the Djebel of, 190 
Melton Town Purse, the, 3 1 
Melville, Whyte, 80 
Merlin, the one-eyed, ii j knocked 
down for 700 guineas, 1 2 
Merry Lockwood’s Gill, 88 
Merryman, Cleveland bred, 86 
Merry weather. Dr., 97 
Messaoud, off Suffolk Punch, 218 
Metcalfe, an old gamekeeper, 70, 71 
Meuricoffre, now living in Naples, 14 ; 
wanted a horse for Italian Grand 
National, 127 j with author to East- 
ern Hungary, 265 
Meux, Sir Henry, 14, 243 
Meysey-Thompson, Sir Henry, 230 
Middlesbrough, 71, 130, 171, 220; 
then the open fields of Swatters’ 
Carr, 57 

— Dorman Museum, 124, 158, 208 
Middleton, in 

— , Bay,” criticizes as an expert, 140 j 
one thing he did not see, 140, 141 
— , Lord, his Morocco, 31 
Milbank, Sir Frederick, 227 
Millbank, Powlett, and a ” good dig ” 
at Dollaw, 64, 65 

— , Mrs. (nee Miss Green-Price), 64 
Miles, a Quaker dentist, and a tame (?) 

squirrel, 24, 25 
Millais, John G., loi 
Milner, Lord, 260 

Mimoun Dagh, and a number of Capra 
agagrus, 167 
Misarden, 52, 117 

Mrs. Gray’s waterbuck (Cobus Maria 
Gray), 164, 266, 267 
Monaughtyi 62 


Monte Carlo band, 217 
Mont Perdu, 157 
Moorfields, cows walking in, 246 
Moorsholm, 49 
— Gill, 88 

— Road, 84 , ■ . 

Morglay, beautiful to look at, 173 
Morrison, Martin, of Faceby, welcome ' 
everywhere, his death, 238 
— , Martin, son of the above, carries on 
old traditions, 238 
Morocco, 175 

Morrell, Mr., his Sunderland, 93 
Mortimer, George, death of his horse, 
half-way up the hill, 137 
Morton, 145 

Mosquito, 14 J wonderful horse for half 
an hour, 13 

Mother Brown, author’s hackney mare, 
120 

Motor carriages, the ” new great, stink- 
ing, shaking,” 217 
Mount Ephraim, 98, 99 
Mowat, a frequent surname, 263 
Mowbray, Miss, a very neat performer, 
223 

“ Munden,” 119 

Muntz, Mr., ” in the first flight,” 149, 
150 

Murthly, 100, loi 

Mu thou Hamadou, a Somali sheep, as 
mascot, the story of his life, 219, 220 


Nairobi, 240 
Naples, 14, 127, 272 
Napoleon, 265 

National Hunt Steeplechases, pity they 
came to an end, 153 
Natrass, a keeper from Durham, 66 
Natural History Museum, South Ken- 
sington, 1 8 1, 188, 213 
Nefla, 198 

Nelson, a first-class ornithologist, 212 
Netherby Hall, burglars, 100 
Newcastle, Bishop of, and the pitman, 


73 » 74 - 


Newcomen, Henry, of Kirkleatham 
Hall, a genial sportsman, 74 
— , Miss, 237 



rINDEX 


294 


New "Kadnor, ^ 3 
Newfon, 68, 93, 113, 275 
— , Professor Alfred, 14.3 
Nichol, Will, huntsman, 32, 57, 58, 67, 
68, 84, 92, 102, 103, 107 j and his 
“'old Plato,” 50 

Nicol, a Scotch trapper, loi ; his son, a 
devil, and murderer, loi, 102, 103 
Nile, the, 199 
Nimphi, 164 

“ Nip,” the terrier, a curious specimen, 
50-2 

Nora Creina, a grey mare, 126, 139 5 
first at the fence, 148-50 
Norfolk, 3 
Nor Itigs, 90, 146 
Normanby, 1 1 1 
North Skelton, 8 5 
Northallerton, 173 
Northumberland, 54 
Norton Manor, 65 
Novelty, a fine hound, 86 
Nuer Country, the, no man under 6-ft. 

8-ins,, no woman under 6-ft., 267 
Nunthorpe, 88, 93 j the powder 

magazine, 17 1 
— Stell, 69, 93 
Nyala, Mount, 245 

Oakley Hunt, cubhunters, 21, 103 
Oaks, the, 75 

Odd Trick, by Needle Gun, had the best 
of a famous run, 635 a perfect snaffle- 
bridle hack, 65 
Ogaden, 220 
Old Eston, 1 5 1 

“ Old Plato ” breaks his knees, 50 

Old Surrey, 102 

Old Tay Bridge, 141 

Olivier, a very old “ Vortrekker,” 260 

Oran, 175 

Orange Colony, 260 

Orgill, 263 

Orleans, Prince Henry of, his Somali 
trophies, 217 
Ormesby, in 
Osborne, John, jockey, 153 
Osman, 115 a dun-bay gelding, 10 
Ottert)urn, 44 


Ouargla (Wargla), 183, 188, 199, 230 
Oued Chair, 200 
— Igharghar, 188 
Over, the pub, 1 5 
— Dinsdale, 129 

Oxley, I. S., a great rifle shot, 206, 
207 

Pallas’s sand grouse invade east coun- 
ties, 123, 124 

Palmer, Sir Charles, of Crinkle, 124 
— , Lionel, his young son, “ got a 
capital upset and enjoyed his cropper 
as usual,” 124 
Panhala, the Fort of. 252 
Parrington,Tom, 103 j followed hounds 
for ninety years, 71 
Paris, 156, 215, 217 
Passet, Celestin, 1 85 ; a noted guide, 155, 
158, 159, 160 

Paulton, James Mellor, on the Cam- 
bridge Drag, 16 

Peachey, a good taxidermist, humorous 
tale of his misfortunes, 242-4 j 

Pearson (“ Nimrod ”), of the Sinning- 
ton, 41 

Pease, Sir Alfred, my first pony and first ^ 
meet, I 5 “ the pain of being thawed,” D, 
I 5 have hunted for sixty-four years, ^ 
2 ; his history of The Cleveland 
Hounds as a Trencher-fed Tack, 2 n. ; 
sport in the Victorian days, 2 seq , ; 
muzzle or breech loaders, 3, 5 j re- 
cords of brace “ over dogs,” 3, 4 ; 
kite very effective with grouse and 
partridges, 4 j first day grouse driving 
over butts, 4, 5 ; a record of killing 
shots, 5, 6 ; the “ wire cartridge,” 6 ; 
grouse-driving, best sport in Scotland 
during October, 6 j diary begins 1 880 j 
kept at home till twelve, 8, 9 ; 
sport and natural history for boys, 9 ; 
a fine run, 1 1 ; Master of the Drag, 

12 J a very difficult drag, 135 a dense 
“ bullfincn,” 14 ; ” comforting ” 

peppermint spirit, 15 j “ for want of 
a drop,” 15; “ a lot of ’em dies in 
training,” 16 ; The Cambridge Drag 
and the Fitzwilliam, 16, 175 first 



INDEX . 


Pease, Sir Alfred, continued — 

Polo Club at Cambridge, 17, 18 ; 

less games and more business,” 18 5 
modern hunting, 18, 19 j “hard- 
bitten old ladies,” 19 j the “ homing ” 
instinct, 19, 20 j a six-mile drag, 21 ; 
Gayhurst’s hoof, 22 j seen very few 
horses killed in the hunting field, 22 ; 
and no men, 22 ; long distances in the 
old days, 22, 23 ; animals tamed, 23 
teq. 5 better hunting without the pro- 
fessional, 28 5 taking a beast head-on, 
28 ; his “ first stag,” 28-30 j a stalk- 
ing success, 30 J you can’t shoe him, 

34 J “ the greatest run I ever saw,” 

35 J hounds die of exhaustion, 35 ; 
modern show hunters, 36 j his The 
Cleveland Hounds as a Trencher^fed 
Tack^ 37 ; the pig-killers and the fox, 
37, 38 5 fox tied to girl’s apron string, 
39 5 a poor day, 39, 40 j nearly 
drowned and frozen, 41 ; his father- 
in-law, 41, 42 ; state coach as han- 
som-cab, 42 j poachers and keepers, 
43, 44 J his brother’s “ blooding,” 44, 

45 } a day’s grouse with a local syndi- 
cate, 45 ; champagne, 10 a.m. to 
4p.m., 45 ; breeder and preacher, 45,, 

46 J a white-haired terrier recovered 
46, 47 5 Christmas beef, 47 ; debate 
on “ Stock and Turnips,” 49 j ter- 
riers in trains, 50, 51 j badger hunt- 
ing, 50 seq. 5 a noisy dog-breaker, 54, 
55 J the trick of stag, grouse and 
salmon a day, 56 j “ as near drownded 
as a whistle 1” 56, 57; his best 
cross-country run, 57, 58 ; broken 
ribs, 58 J a few old records, 58, 59 ; 
hunting a “ Baggie,” 60, 61, 84, 85 ; 
April and May, the months for hunt- 
ing, 61, 62 ; a lazier generation, 62 ; 
stable habits forty years ago, 62 ; his 
last day with the Cleveland, 62 ; a 
posse of “ Rebecca’s daughters,” 62 ; 
riding a bus horse, 63 ; uniformity of 
colour in a pack a mistake, 64 j small 
profits for dealers, 65, 66 j accidents 
to the eyes, from shooting, 66, 67 5 
our provincial ways, 68, 69 5 creator 


295 

of Yorkshire Agricultii^re S6ciety‘i etc., 
71 ; a curious accident, 72, 73 and 
77 5 a variety of uniforms, 75 ; a 
crazy breed, 78 ; a case of blackmail, 
78, 79 ; huntsmen should be %uith 
hounds, 79 ; “ in the heyday of 

youth,” 83 seq . ; the Egyptian -cam- 
paign, 86, 87 ; “a neat impronjptu ” 
by Wilfred Lawson (?J, 87, 88. j many . 
good runs, 88, 89 ; some fun with 
the beagles, 90 ; hunting two-year- 
olds, 91 ; a six-foot jump, 93 5 more 
frightening than big game, 94, 95 ; 
the secrets of horse-training, 95, 96 ; 
votes against Women’s Suffrage, 99 5 
a grim hanging, 100 j when magi- 
strate in the Transvaal, 100 j a puppy 
show, 103 ; politics “ stormy,” 103 ; 
a question of guarantors, n6 j the 
loathesomeness of London, 1 1 6, 1 1 7 ; 
feats of a “mad keen ” rider, 117 ; 
fall from mare overjumping, 120 ; 
prefers Shorthorns to Jerseys, 120, 
121 5 a rattling day with the Hur- 
worth, 127, 128 5 not fond of otter 
hunting, 1 34 j with Lord Rosebery, 
1355 nearest escape from death ever 
experienced, 135, 1365 prices of 
forage, 137 5 “ damned badly ridden ” 
truth from an expert, 140 5 Con- 
tinental breeds in Berlin, 141, 142 ; 
introduced Bill for the Protection of 
Wild Birds, 143 j seven “ Peases ” in 
a race, 146 j a thrilling steeplechase, 
147-50 J newspaper account of his 
“ win,” 148-50 J the best man across 
country, among late Victorians, 152, 
153 ; visits the Pyrenees, 155 seq. j 
after ibex, 156 seq. j in Asia Minor 
with Ed. North Buxton, 162 seq. j a 
lesson from a stag, 165, 166 ; at- 
tacked by eagle, 166, 167 j some 
curious falls, 170-2 ; a wily fox, 172 ; 
to Algeria, 1 74 seq. ; an awkward 
shot, 177, 178 J list of Algerian 
birds, 1825 horrors of sand storm, 
189 5 a narrow escape, 19 1 ; in the 
Sahara, 200 seq . ; dangerous game, 
201, 202 J Austrian custo^iis, 203 



INDEX 


296 

Peasci Sir Alfred, continued — 

seq, ; record of eight days, 206 ; no 
time for golf, 214, 215 j too great 
extremes make poor half-breeds, 2185 
first quail shooting in Cleveland, 2185 
only time author has been let down by 
a gunmaker, 219 ; test your am- 
munition, 219 ; M.P. for Cleveland, 
219 5 dangers of ski-ing, 222, 223 ; 

' the Diamond Jubilee year, 225, 226 5 

' no interest in Arctic exploration, 22 5 ; 
dislikes women out shooting, 227 5 
fourteen tip-top lady riders, 228 ; a 
very troublesome fall, 229 ; thirty- 
eight miles out and back without 
meeting a living soul, 230 ; brought 
over only true Barb mares ever seen 
in England, 230-2 ; foundation of 
English thoroughbreds, 232 ; why 
have true Barbs been neglected ? 232, 

233 j overworked in parliamentary 
committees, etc., 233 j given two or 
three years, has already lived thirty, 

234 J horrible man-traps, 239, 240 5 
in Abyssinia, 244^57. 5 death of three 
centenarians, 245, 246 j suffering 
from inefficient X-rays, 247 5 dis- 
putes with accident insurance com- 
panies, 248, 249 ; financial ruin, 256 
&eq, ; expects to spend rest of his life in 
South Africa, 256 j Garden of Eden, 
but land of death and disease, 257, 
258 5 back to England, 263 5 to 
Capri, 264 5 a cheap trip, 265 ; at- 
tacked by ants, 269, 270, 271 5 back 
to Capri, 272 5 home again, 272 seq, ; 
his Book of the Lion, 274 5 speech on 
High Roads, 275 ; to author’s farm 
in British East Africa, 277 ; visit 
from Roosevelt, 277-80 ; not for- 
getting horse and hound, 281 

— , Arthur, the author’s uncle, 1 1 5 ; his 
prize bullock, 47 

— , Sir Arthur F., author’s cousin, 21 1, 
247, 263, 264, 274 

— , Christopher, author’s young son, 
21 1, 276 5 best rider at the Yorkshire 
Show, 217, 218 5 the youngest com- 
petitor, fifth out of thirty-one, 223 ; 


kills with a single barrel .410, 226 : 
at Khartum, 268 

— , Claud, the author’s cousin, 276 5 
hunts with the Cleveland, 226 
— , Miss S. H., author’s cousin, 193 
— , Edwin L., author’s cousin, 56 ; dies 
on the field, 129 
— , Ernie, 21 1 
— , Aunt Gurney, 80 
— , Herbert Pike, author’s cousin, with 
the Cleveland, 226, 227 
— , Howard, of Otterburn, the author’s 
cousin, 44, 45 

— , J. A., author’s brother, 146 
— , John William, author’s uncle, shot 
in the eye, 66 ; fishing from Manacles 
Rock, 95 

— , Sir Joseph, father of author, 9, 44, 
53 » S9» 70» 87,94, 95, 100, 1 16, 213, 
246 5 his “ kennel,” 4 5 too tender- 
hearted, 8 5 more of a shooting than 
hunting man, 9, 10 5 rents a deer 
forest near Balmoral, 275 his head 
keeper a character, 54, 55 5 a case of 
blackmail, 78, 79 5 with Lord Ports- 
mouth’s famous pack, 82—4 j guaran- 
tor for the Clevelands, 97 ; on Squire 
Wharton, 239 ; financial ruin, 256 
— , Lady (Author’s wife), had to winter 
abroad, 264 
— Lloyd, 147, 247 
— , W. E., author’s cousin, 193, 21 1 
Pease’s Plantations, 129 
Peggy Dillon, a grey mare, 126, 129, 139 
Peeping Tom, 119 
Pennant, Hon, Douglas, 229 
Pennyman, Alfred, 86 
— , Enoch, Lord Zetland's trainer, 86 
Percival, stud-groom, 81 
Percy Cross Plantation, 72, 131, 136 
Perthshire, 100, 114, 136, 203 
Petch, John, 84, 86, 137, 146, 226, 227; 

“ a straight man to hounds,” 15 
— , Thomas S., son of the above, 1 5, 69, 
? 7 » I 03 » 15 ^ 

Phillida, rising four-year-old mare, by 
Charles I, 142, 151 



INDEX 


297 


Phillips, B. H. (Bertie), of The Heath 
House, II 5 and Lucifer, 12 ; a life- 
long friend, 248 
— , J. W., his Oliver, 229 
Phipson, Curator of Bombay Museum, 
249, 251 

Piggeries, 72, 146 
Piggery Rigg, 90 

Pinchinthorpe, 52, 93, 118, 131, 246 
Pinzgauer, circus-coloured horses or 
spotted roans, 141 

Piper, grey-and-fawn terrier, “ the last 
of the breed,” 53 

Playfair, Sir Lambert, his Algeria^ 1 74 
Poachers, and keepers, 43, 44 
Polo, the first club at Cambridge, 17, 1 85 
becomes only possible for the wealthy, 

233 . 

Pontresina, 208, 224 
Portland, Duke of, 47 
Portsmouth, Lord (fifth Earl), 103, 116} 
his famous pack, 80-2 5 a jolly Squire, 
91, 92 j the beginning of his success, 93 
Potto, 131 

Prediger Stuhle, 204, 207 
Pretoria, 256 

Price, Colonel, M.F.H., 64; a good ! 

man to hounds, 63 
Priestcroft, 85 

Protection of Wild Birds, author intro- 
duces Bill for, 143 

Proud, John, Master of Cleveland 
Hounds, 32, 67, 69, 85, III; at 
Warrenby kennels, 65 ; his death at 
seventy-five, 234, 235 
Puckeridge, the, 89 

Tunch, “ Mr. Briggs ” pursued by buf- 
faloes, 102 

Pyrenees, author’s visit to, 155 seq. 
Pytchley, 12, 68, 147, 148 

guEEN Adelaide, by Hermit, at the 
Derby and the Oaks, 7 5 
Mab, “ found a way over everything,” 
74 

(Jueensberry, Lord, “ no other man liv- 
ing could have won the race,” 3 1, 32 
Quorn, the, 68 

Raby Hunt, the, 214 


Rackwith, 263 . 

Radnorshire, 62 
Ras Makonnen, 2 54 
Rauch, Amdreas, 208 ; noted chamois 
hunter, 224 
Ravenscar, iii 
Redcar, 36, 151, 212, 273 
Report, strange history- of his failures 
and ultimate success, 126, 127 
Reservoir, 106 

Retrievers, the “ curly ” black or brown, 
now almost extinct, and their modern 
successors, 7, 8 

Richmond, stud-hound, with the best 
blood of England in him, 82 ; “a great 
success,” 93 

Richardson, John Maunsell (“ The 
Cat ”), unsurpassed in head, eye, and 
hands, 152-4 
Rickaby (jockey), 36 
Rillington, 254 

Rime, a species of gazelle, “unknown 
to science,” 187, 188, 200, 201 
River Tees, 38 
Roberts, Lord, 241 

Robinson, Ralph, 59 ; “ didn’t believe 
in book lamin’,” 49 
— , “ Leather,” 84 
Rock Hole, 8 5 
Rockies, the, loi, 219 
Rohallion, a beautiful place, 100, 102 
Roland, a nice half-bred, died of horse- 
sickness, 259, 260 

Rosebery, Lord, his bloodstock, 135 ; 
his “ win ” with Ladas, 209 ; his 
marvellous capacity, 209 ; his second 
Derby, 212 ; his Velasquez second in 
the Derby, 226 
— Topping, 171 

Rosedale, thirty-eight miles there and 
back without seeing anyone, 230 
Roseg Glacier, 224 

Roosevelt, Theodore, 274 ; three days 
for lions, a delightful guest, 277—80 
Ross, protects the snow-white stag, 209 
Rostrevor, 119 

Roswell, one of Rothschild’s sires, 173 
Rothschild, Leopold, his bloodstock, 
173 ; his Jerseys and emus, 173 



INDEX 


298 

Rothschild, Hon. N, Charles, a great nat- 
uralist, busy collecting fleas, 236, 237 
Roxby, 38, 49, 276, 277 

— Hounds, amalgamated with the 
Cleveland, 37 

— , Danby, 115 

— country, “ a punishing run,” 137 
Rugby, 139 

Russell, Hon. Hamilton, on The Nun, 
146 

Rutherford, Jas., ** preferred cotton 
cake,” 49 

— Miss, 58, 237 

Sabi Game Reserve, 25 
Saccharometer, 119 
Sadberge, 128 

Safia, a chestnut Barb mare, 231, 232 
Sahara, the, 200 seq, ; prefers the old 
** difficulties,” 202, 203 
St. Aubyn, G., 223 

Sailor, by Trimmer, “ one of the best,” 
92 

St. Lawrence, first-rate with the hounds, 

59 

St. Leger, the, 209 

St. Moritz, a Christmas at, 222 

St. Sauveur, 155 

Salerous passage, the, 159 

Saltburn, 136, 172, 237 

— , Gill, 88 

Samaden, 208 

Sandown Members’ Handicap, the, 1 19, 
120 

Scalby, 120 
Scarth, Willie, 173 
Schwazen See, 204, 208 
Scornful, old, a hardworking hound, 116 
Scott, the Arctic explorer, 225 
— , Sir Samuel, 230 
Scotland, shooting in, 3, 4, 28, 1 14, 1 15, 
122 

Seabright, ” a hound tonguing,” 40 
Seamer, 57 

— Whin, 1 15 
Sedgefield, 59 

Selous, given information by the author, 
169 

Sessay, 10 


Severs’ Plantation, 57 
Severs, iii 

Shamrock, an almost white horse, 14 
Shepley, Mrs., her good steering saves 
bad accident, 223 
Shorthorns, 12 1 

Shotesham, 2 ; its pure white pheasants, 

, 136, 137 

Shotts, the, 187 
Sidi Okba, 176 

Sidney, Hy., digging his grave, 213 
Silvo, 14 1 
Singapore, 243 
Sinnington, the, 41, 48, 71 
Sioux Indians, 10 r 

Sir Visto wins Derby for Lord Rosebery, 
212 

Shropshire Handicap, a great event, no 
Shull, 214 
Skelderskew, 90 
Skelton, 62, 15 1, 237 

— Castle, 2, 89 

— Ellers, 239 

— Green, 86 

— Warren, 3^, 72, 85 
Ski-ing, in its infancy, 222, 223 
Skutterskelf, 107, 127 
Slapewath, 72, 85 

Slatter, author’s police commandant, 196 
Sleddale, 72, 90, 142, 146 
Smeaton, 129 

Smoke, a Norwegian elk-dog, always a 
nuisance, 167 
Snowden, Dr., 41 
Snow Hall, 213, 214 
Soames, Captain, drops the flag, 148 
Soapwell, Tocketts Tile Works, 88 
Sobat, 234 
Somali, 244, 245 
Somali Waterless Haud, 220 
Somaliland, 183, 219, 236, 244 j list of 
game killed by twenty-nine sportsmen, 
227 

South Africa, no, 232, 236 

— Dorset claim descent from eighteenth 
century True Blue pack, 122 

— Durham, the, 77, 89 
Southend, Darlington, 47 
Southern India, 248, 251 seq. 



INDEX 


299 


Sowerby, J. P., 103 

Spelling, author follows local pronunci- 
ation, 200, 72 . 

Spencer, Hpn. C. R. (Bobby), step- 
brother of the Red Earl, 1 1 
— , Lord (“ Red Earl ’*), and his one- 
eyed Merlin, ii ; sells his horses, 12 ; 
his character, 150, 151 
Spink, Nicholas, 40, 61, 69, 13 1 
— , Richard, brother of the above, 40, 61 
Spite Hall, 93 
Squire Moor, 63 
Stainsby Wood, 68 
Stainton, 57 
Stanley Houses, 57, 68 
— , Tom, a tramping “ saw-sharpener,’* 
strange story of his life, 108-10 
— , Captain, father of th^ above, dis- 
tinguished himself at Waterloo, 109 
Statesman, an old dog-hound, 19 
Stanghow, 88 
Stockton, 128 
Stokesley, 123 
Straker, Herbert, 21 1 
Streamlet, a fine hound, 86 
Stuart, Sir Wm., of Murthly, strange 
stories about, 100 seq, 

Stubbs, D., third in lightweights, 151 
Styria, 227, 228 j good times in, 204, 
206 

Sudan, 179, 236 
Sunbury Common, 59 
Superba, at the Oaks, 75 
Surrey, 99 
— Stag Hounds, 98 
Susan, by Sunderland, “ one of the best,” 
92»93 

Swainby, 123, 131, 133 
Swatter’s Carr, open fields near Middles- 
brough, 57 
Swindles, 83, 103 
Switzerland, 157, 245 
Sydney, Miss, given the brush, 69 
Syrian, a horse after my own heart,” 
a record of his successes, 1 19, 120 

Tadjenout, the wells of, 197 

Taha bel Lazouach, a faitkful follower, 

191 I 


Taufikya, 271 
Tanncherinne, 205 
Tanton, 276 

— Stell, 276 

Tattersalls, 21, 31, 33, 72, 120 
Taylor, most faithful second horseman, 
107 

Tean, ii 
Tees Banks, 129 
Teleki, Count, 205, 208 
Templar, his first season, 116 
Tempest, Lord Henry Vane, 136 
Temple, John, 41 

Tennat, Eddie (Lord Glenconner), 14 
Terriers, on the railway, 50, 51 5 mo- 
dem show breeds, 51 ; two breeds 
which have disappeared, 53 
Thames, 220 5 crossed three times, 
59 

Theki, 274 

Thompson, old Scotch stalker, 162 
Thornton, 88 

— Stell, 1 1 3 
Throstle, 209 
Thrumster, 274 
Thunder, 119 

Thunderer, a good horse, 74 
Thusis, 224 
Tidkinhowe, 88, 90 
Timbuctoo, 197 
Tocketts Lythe, 88, 90 
Tomkinson, Rt. Hon. James (Jump- 
kinson), the hardest rider in England, 
117 ; lost his life at a point-to-point, 
141 

Tow Low, Durham, 20 
Toyo, the plains of, 220 
Trafalgar, a poem on, 246 
Transvaal, the, 23, 100, 224, 232, 249, 
232, 237 J only home of the Bush 
pig, 261, 262 
Transylvania, 263 

Trent, one of Rothschild’s sires, 1 73 
Tresgarges, 138 
Tring, 173, 237 

Tuareg country, 179, 182, 197, 19S 
Tunbridge Wells, 98 
Tunisia, 174, 175, 180 
Turton, Major, M.F.H,, 120 



INDEX 


300 


Turton, Major Robert Bell, 96, 136 ; of 
the Kildare Estates, 39 
Twig, a “ game ” terrier, 145, 21 1 

UcKERBY Whin, 73 
Uganda, 272, 274 
Ugthorpe, 277 

Underhills, near Godstone, 98 
University Drag, best school for cross- 
country rides, 10 
Upsall, 60, 1 1 1 

— Eston Moor, 68 
Upleatham, 102, iii, 146 

— Hall and ViUage, i, 88 

Val d ’Arras, 156 

— de Niscel, 160 

Vale of White Horse, 92 
Val d’Ossoue, 155 

Vane, Lord Henry, always at the top, 59 
Venery, code of, 204 
Vernet les Bains, 21 1 
Verney, Hon, Greville, 230 
Vesuvius, a devastating eruption, 272 
Victoria, J^ueen, 19, 67 ; ** I ken weel 
hoo te talk to this class o’ person,” 555 
1887 Jubilee, 113 
Villebois, Mr., his hounds, 92, 93 
Vincente, 158, 150 
Vine, the, 92 

Walton, Jack, akorse dealer, 212 
Ward, T., 77, 1 1 5, 142, 146, 173 
Ward- Jackson, Charlie, hard rider, 146, 

173 

— , Ralphie, hard rider, 173 
Warrenby Kennels, the, 65 
Waterbeach Drag, 13 
Waterfall, 85 

Waterford, Lord and Lady, 75 
Waterloo, the Battle of, 10 1, 109 
Watt, Colonel Alex-Fitzgerald, D.S.O., 
of Guisbrough, 246 
Waupley, 67 
— Gill, 84 
— Moor, 1 15 
Webster, his farm, 212 
Welford, Joe, his dog at the poachers, 44 
•— family, the, 37 


Wellbury, 129 

Welsh hounds, real stickers, 64 
West Ay ton, 35 

Westerdale, 85 ; miles without seeing a 
living soul, 230 
West House, 72, 90 
Wharton, Squire, of Skelton, 130 ; his 
seventy-six birthday, 89 ; his kennels, 
90 5 his death, 238, 239 
— , Colonel, son of the above, 39, 89 
» A., 2 ; elected Master of the 
Clevelands, 96, 97 ; new conditions 
work well, 116 

— , John, of Skelton, uncle of Squire 
Wharton, 238 

— j J. T., “ brought the hounds into 
kennel,” 2, 238 
— , Miss, 96 

Whitall, leading English family at Smyr- 
na, 164, 169 
Whitby, 1 5 
White Cross, 91 

— Nile, the, 234, 266, 267 
Whitwell, E. R,, 80 ; a desperate rider, 

59 

Wick, 263 

Wickle, seizes badger and holds on, 118 
Wideawake, a thoroughbred, 21 
Wiley, 72 

— Cat, 85 

Wilkinson, Tom, founder of the Hur- 
worths, and otter hunting, 134 ; real 
old country gentleman, his death, 237 
Wilson, R. Theodore, “ still a stayer,” 2 
Wilton Castle, 105 
Wiltshire, 79, 80 
Windymere, a fine hound, 86 
Winton, 136, 238 
Wiske, the, had to jump twice, 136 
Witton Cross Roads, 62 
Willoughby, Sir John, “ placed ” three 
times in one year, 75 
Wolsingham, 247 

Wonder, a hard-working hound, 116 
Woodland Pytchley, ii 
Woodwark’s drain, 137, 138 
Worcester, Lord, 75 
— , “ not a crasher,” 79, 80 
“ Worrm John,” 55 



INDEX 


Wrattislaw, Vice-Consul, helps Buxton, 
164 

Wynyard, 130 

Yani, a dirty cook, 168 
Yarborough, Lord, 11; a hound from 
his kennels, 19 
Yarm, 128, 129 
Yearby Bank, 273 
Yeoman, George, 67 
— , Robert, 67 
York, 132, 232 

Yorkshire, 20, 263 j sport not equal to 
Scotland, 6 


301 

Young, Michael, of Cockermouth, 1 10, 
126 

Zaila, 244 

Zeribet el Oued, 176 

Zetland, Marquess of, 17, 70, 86, 87 ; 

succeeded the Duke of Cleveland, i 
— , the, 59, 60, 80, 88, 89, 93, 102, 103, 
129, 146, 21 1 
Zibans, oases of the, 174 
Zululand Game Reserve, the last thir- 
teen white rhinos, 259 
Zwai, Lake, 245 


V- 




A BOOK OF 
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